


The Darkness Comes Next

by Bellatrix_Wannabe_89



Series: WCA [3]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angsty mcangst angst, F/M, Mad Queen Daenerys Targaryen, Minor Podrick Payne/Sansa Stark, Not anywhere’s close to what happened in WCA, Rape/Non-con Elements, not explicit though, sequel of sorts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:56:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22389052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bellatrix_Wannabe_89/pseuds/Bellatrix_Wannabe_89
Summary: Alternative Ending to ‘What Comes After.’ The dawn never came. No one stormed the castle, no rescues were attempted, and Daenerys made good on her promise to send Jaime and Brienne’s cub to Essos to pay for her parents sins.Sixteen years later fire and blood still reigns in Westeros, a lion and his Evenstar are only able to be lovers in secret, and a tall pillow slave in Meereen with golden hair and astonishing blue  eyes is about to find out that she’s the key to defeating the last dragon...
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: WCA [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1543165
Comments: 49
Kudos: 74





	1. Chapter 1

_ “I think that {our baby might be dead}. But the worst thing is, perhaps not. Perhaps our baby will be born and we'll never find her, we'll never see her, we'll never care for her…” _

**_Miranda Hilmarson- Top of the Lake_ **

* * *

  
“Push! Push! Indigon, indigon!”

Brienne screamed as loud as she could, her voice echoing off the stone wall of her prison as her body betrayed her and did what mothers had done since the dawn of the first age without permission or consent of its owner. Tears mingled with sweat as she gripped her thighs so tight that short dirty nails drew blood, and tiny streaks of crimson wept down her thighs as she held her legs open.

She leaned up against the wall as the contractions took a momentary break, gasping and sobbing. Unsullied guards stood on either side of her, spears at the ready Incase she tried to escape and then one of the Essos healers the Dragon brought with her was kneeling between Brienne’s long legs and urging her to push her cub out.

There were no friendly faces, no comforting sweet words, no one’s hand to grasp through the pain, no anything that girls dreamt about their entire lives when they pictured what was supposed to be one of the best moments of their lives. She didn’t have her Maester, she didn’t have a warm soft birthing bed, she didn’t have the man she loved who had sired the cub next to her holding her hand and stroking her hair while he whispered encouragement in her ear...

There were no one but those loyal to fire and blood in the same dark cold cramped dungeon she had been in the last few countless weeks. Emmett told her that Sansa, Tyrion and Podrick all made fevered requests to be with her when the babe was born or to even let her have a damn bed at least but Daenerys refused them all. She had, however, given into her Hands plea to let a healer be down with Brienne when it happened and Daenerys made sure only Unsullied would be there to guard her while she spread her legs and bared all to the world rather than Dothraki.

After all, Daenerys told Tyrion as she looked down on him from her makeshift wooden throne, she wasn’t entirely cruel…

Brienne shook her head as the contractions gave her a moment of reprieve. “Please!” she begged the healer between her legs through her gasping sobs that wrecked her body so hard she could barely sit up. “Please! Please don’t take my baby! Please don’t-! PLEASE!”

“Push!” was the only answer the healer had for her. Brienne felt that age old familiar pain crash down on her in waves and storms and she threw her head back and screamed, her voice cracking. 

“JAIME!” she shrieked as loud as her beaten battered body would allow as the pain he should have been there to help her climb over threatened to overwhelm her. 

He had to hear her, he had to. He would come to her rescue then, he would come to his cubs rescue, he would slay the guards watching her and this uncaring midwife and then he would save her, he would make sure her baby stayed with her. It would be like all the songs of knightly valor...

“JAIME!” The pain was almost overbearing now and the urge to push was far too strong to ignore. **“** JAIME, PLEASE! JAIME, HELP ME, PLEASE! PLEASE! **_JAIME!!!”_**

“Stop screaming and push.”

The voice came behind the cell and through the excruciating haze Brienne looked and saw Daenerys standing in the doorway with Greyworm looking cold and cruel, stoic and unmoving. The torchlight flickering off her pale white face made her look more terrible and beautiful than anything Brienne had ever seen before or would again...

“Please don’t take her!” the knight begged the Queen, her words barely legible through her screamed sobs. She hated it; being more vulnerable and terrified then she'd ever been in her life. She couldn’t get out of this with swords or strength, honorable pleas were useless, she couldn’t do anything to protect the person she loved most in this world and she was frightened far past any sense of fear she had ever felt before… “Please don’t take my baby! Please! I want Joanna! I want Joanna, please!”

“Stop screaming,” Daenerys told her again, an icy chill freezing the very marrow of Brienne’s tired and weary bones shooting from the queens lips. “And push.”

Brienne had no choice. No chance and no choice. She wasn’t strong enough to fight against millions of years of instinct and intuition and against her own pleading she bore down on her own flesh and pushed and strained, tears rushing down her face as she felt the healers hands between her thighs and she felt something shift inside her and then a moment later the baby was pulled from inside her. A beat, and then a loud wailing Brienne already knew better than any other sound on this earth filled the dungeon.

“It’s a girl,” the healer told not Brienne but the queen in the ancient Valerian language. The Queen pursed her lips for a moment before she gave the foreign woman a curt nod.

“Give her to me,” Brienne begged, watching as the healer stood up with the baby and made her way to the cell door. “Let me see her!  **GIVE ME MY BABY!”**

Far more exhausted than she ever felt before Brienne scrambled to her feet and the guards immediately grabbed hold of her. She fought against them with every single ounce of strength she possessed, wrenching one of her arms free and colliding her fist against one of the guards face and sending him crashing against the wall. The tall knight reached for the healer who had ignored the scuffle but the guard still standing upright whipped her around and, with as much force as he could muster, kicked her hard between her legs. 

Brienne screamed as she fell to the floor, the pain so intense she nearly blacked out. She heard the two guards walk out and she wanted nothing more then to slip into the darkness that threatened to overwhelm her but she forced herself to stay awake because one thing above all managed to cut through the pain. 

Joanna was crying. She needed her mother, Brienne couldn’t slip away now, not when her baby needed her...

She managed to climb on her hands and knees and then, limbs shaking, she stood up from the floor. She made it a few steps before one of the guards made a move to punch her across the face. She blocked it and hit him as hard as she could in the jaw but before she could do any more damage one of them drove an armored first into her stomach and she crashed to the floor again, gasping for breath that wouldn’t come.

_Get up!_ a voice snarled at her from deep inside; Jaime’s and her father’s and her own commanding her all at once. Joanna was still crying out for her… _Get UP!_ _Protect your cub!_ _Mothers and mates of lions do not give up without a fight!_

The blood between her legs was flowing freely now with no signs of stopping. Brienne took as deep a breath as her lungs would allow before she slowly, very slowly, got up from the ground. Through the haze she saw Daenerys looking at her almost impressed. The guards were blurred and when Brienne lurched forward and clutched the bars of the cell door and yanked at it, she began sobbing when she realized the door was now locked and the guards and her daughter were now on the other side of the door.

“Please!” Brienne begged the Queen as she reached through the door. “Please give me my baby!” 

“I warned you what would happen,” the Queen said sharply as the healer stood beside her. In the dim torchlight Brienne could see the tiny tuft of soft pale yellow hair and deep blue eyes, she could see Jaime’s nose and chin, Selwyn’s ears… Even covered in fluids from the birth she was the most beautiful thing Brienne had ever seen.

“I warned you that you would never hold her,” Daenerys continued. “You would never name her, and she would never suckle at your breast.” The Queen looked almost amused. “What kind of Queen would I be if I didn’t keep my word?”

Joanna was screaming louder now and the sound tore through Brienne like freshly forged steel. “She’s scared!” the knight cried. “Please! Please she’s scared, just- just let me hold her! Please! I’ll do anything you want, just let me see her!”

The dragon regarded her for a moment. “Anything?”

Brienne nodded frantically. “Anything! I’ll- I’ll help you destroy the north! I know all of Winterfell secrets, I know all of Lady Sansa's secrets, secrets you can use against her, they’re all yours!” 

It wasn’t her crying out that she would betray her Lady and her oath that had her wrecked her with guilt. Truth be told she felt little to nothing about the offer she just made.  _ That _ was what made her feel terrible…

“I’ll marry Ser Hayden, he can rule Tarth in your name, I’ll renounce all my claims to the isle, I’ll live in squalor for the rest of my life, I’ll do whatever you  _ want _ , just let me see my baby!”

Daenerys’ violet eyes were cold and cruel, a far cry from the woman who looked at her first with shock at her stature and then with a softness. She had told the knight she admired her honor and loyalty, she told her the Dothraki and Unsullied admired strength in the fairer sex. She told her that, if Brienne wanted to leave Sansa’s services, the warrior would have a place by the dragons side.

“Would you kill the Kingslayer?” the Queen asked, her voice as sharp as Drogons talons. “To have your baby; would you kill the Kingslayer?”

Breath refused to come. Blue eyes widened wide and for half a heartbeat even Joanna’s cries were silenced. The blonde looked over at the screaming babe and then back at the expectant queen who raised a brow at the knight, awaiting an answer. 

Jaime left her heartbroken to try to save his child. He nearly died trying to save the babe Cersei was carrying. He pushed Bran Stark out of a window and started a war to protect his children, he risked war with Dorne to rescue Myrcella…

He would understand. He would. She had to protect Joanna, she had to save her cub… No matter the cost, no matter how much it hurt her heart and her soul and every single last part of her... 

Brienne took a ragged breath and, unable to speak, she nodded, biting back a sobas she did.

She expected shock on the queen's face. She expected a curt nod and for the sound of the door to open and for her daughter to be placed in her waiting arms and an order to do the unspeakable as soon as she could… She expected anything but the cold cruel, smirk that painted the queen’s face.

Daenerys turned from Brienne to look at the healer. “Make sure the wet nurse feeds her before you take her to the orphanage. Addams should do nicely.”

“Wha- no!” Brienne cried as the healer agreed with a small bow and a ‘yes, Your Grace’. “You said I could see her! If I agreed to do that, you said you would let me have her!”

“And the Kingslayer swore to protect my father and my brothers children,” Daenerys snapped. “ _ You  _ swore Tarth’s fealty to me. Both of you lied to me.” Her voice softened and for a moment, just one single solitary moment, Brienne almost saw a flash of sympathy. “So now I lied to you.”

“No! NO!” Brienne screamed as the queen turned on her heel and walked away, the healer and Joanna following in suit. Her daughter's cries echoing in the stone dungeon until a distant door slammed and the knight was plunged into silence. “LET ME SEE HER! LET ME SEE HER! JOANNA, PLEASE! JOANNA!  **_JOANNA!!!”_ **

Well after the sun had set a sound rose up from the black cells into the second floor of the dungeons, something the guards said had never happened before, no matter how loud the prisoners cried out. A lions screams and sobs and roars ripped through the stone and the silence, and miles away, in the worst slums of a half burnt Flea Bottom in a draft and dreary orphanage, a pale white cub cries unknowingly joined in the chorus of the sorrowful mournful song of screams and sobs the lion and crescent moon were singing into the night...

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	2. Chapter 2

_Gods above, can he just hurry up? If I miss it because of this fat slob- Shit, what’d he say?_

Tanda bit her plump, oversized lip as the large Ghiscari pounded into her from behind, gasping and panting so hard she feared he might pass out. He buried his fingers into her pale straw colored hair and yanked back, hard. 

“I asked,” he panted in her ear. His foul breath made her want to gag but she ignored it. “If I was… the best… you- shit.” He swallowed hard, panting hard. “You… ever… had.”

_Not even close._

“Yes,” Tanda moaned loudly with a roll of her brilliantly deep blue eyes (eyes men constantly told her were utterly astonishing) when he let go of her hair. “Oh Gods yes…” _What was his name? Onno? Zonno? “_ Oznak! Oh Oznak, you make me so wet,” she purred. “You and your big fat cock…”

That seemed to have done the trick. He pumped harder and harder, him and his short stubby little cock, until finally, with a roar loud enough to wake the dead he spilled his seed inside her, the same as countless customers had before him and would long after him.

He collapsed on top of her, gasping and panting and eager for breath that didn’t seem to went to come. Other women might have been crushed under the weight of him, all three hundred pounds, but not Tanda. Not ‘Tall Tanda’ with her broad shoulders and wide hips. Everything about her seemed big (except for her pitiful meager excuse for a chest); her hips, her feet, her hands, her thighs, her lips… She stood an even 6’0, taller than any woman she had ever met and many a man as well. 

“Your mother was a tall whore and your father a taller drunk,” Jeyne, the caretaker of the orphanage in Fleabottom used to tell her, usually with a smack outside her head, when Tanda outgrew the drag grey dresses faster than any of her other charges. Then when she was eight she was taken away from the drafty crowded room and her bed of straw in the corner and given to an Unsullied, a tall stoic cold man they called… Grey wind? Great Worm? She couldn’t remember the name, but she did remember when he put her on a ship that took her to Meereen. She remembered pulling away to no avail, screaming and sobbing that she didn’t want to go as he dragged her to the docks. Not because she loved the orphanage or the caretaker or the shit stained city but because she knew what waited for her when she got off that boat.

Sure enough, after a long grueling trip on the narrow sea, a woman met her on the docks and took her to a pillow house just outside of the Great Pyramids shadow.

“No one will ever call you pretty,” Galezna, the owner of the pillow house told her when she first laid eyes on her. “But I’m getting paid a lot of money to turn you into a proper whore so what you lack in looks you’re going to have to make up for in skill.”

Tanda never understood what that meant. Didn’t owners of whorehouses buy women? Since when did they get paid to take slaves? As a matter of fact since when did they get paid to take a tall gangly girl from all the way across the narrow sea? 

But Tanda put it out of her mind. For the next four years she learned how to pleasure men, how to talk to them after, how to pretend to enjoy what they did, how to play the coy little maid or the well versed whore… 

Then on her twelfth name day she laid with a man for the first time. 

He wasn’t cruel, not really, not like some of the other girls said men could be, but he wasn’t gentle either. Tanda cried afterwards, for a long while. Galezna told her not to expect sympathy from the other girls (especially not the ones who had been broken in rougher and younger then Tanda) because they all suffered the same and she was no different, wiped her tears, and said that one was enough for the day. The next week she had been forced to lay with two men a day, the next week three… Six years later there were as many men as who wanted to pay inside her a day.

As she grew older (and taller) she became a fetish for men. They fetishized her height, her lips, her legs that went on for miles and miles... Tanda wasn’t the prettiest whore but no one could say she didn’t stand out in a crowd.

“She’s got giant’s blood,” Galezna told some of the men who came to visit. “She came from north of the Wall in the Seven Kingdoms. She’s the descendant of the Titan of Braavos, she’s the great great great granddaughter of the famed knight Duncan the Tall.”

All lies to make her more appealing to the men who came to visit. Tanda wasn’t any of those. She was just the tall bastard of a drunkard father and a whore who didn’t care enough about her to give her a name before she dumped her off at the orphanage still covered in fluids from the birth.

Oznak finally realized Tanda was still underneath him and he rolled off her, wiping the sweat from his brow. “You… were… amazing.”

She flashed her slyest smile at him. “Tips are always appreciated.” He laughed before he took a deep breath, groaning as he rolled off the feather bed. Tanda laid back on the bed, watching him with as much faux enjoyment as she could muster.

“Play the part until you have the coin in hand,” Galezna told her early on when Tanda shuddered in disgust as one of her first men gave her one final kiss before he got out of the bed. He was, apparently, so upset about the rejection of a twelve year old that he only was willing to pay half the house fees.

After the Ghiscari dressed himself he walked back over to the bed and kissed her. She moaned as he shoved his tongue into her mouth, as if it was the sexiest thing any man had ever done to her and then he finally, _finally,_ reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of coins and put them on her bedside drawer.

“I’ll see _you_ next week,” he told her with a wink.

“I can’t wait,” she purred with her own sultry grin. 

The sweat had already started to leak through his stained tokar. 

The moment the door shut behind him Tanda leapt from the bed and dressed herself not in her ‘work clothes’ but in a plain grey dress with a simple crimson colored cloak (her favorite color) and a pair of old dusty boots. She grabbed the money on her bedstand and hurried out of her room, locking and shutting it behind her. 

Behind the various doors she could hear muffled voices and not so muffled cries of passion, real and fake alike. She headed into the parlor and found Galezna lounging on a black leather sofa. She was older, nearing her sixtieth nameday, with grey streaks in her black curly hair and wrinkles tugging at her dark brown eyes she always kept painted and a long thin body (not as tall as Tanda though. Then again no women she had ever met was) and the warm soft brown skin of the Lhazareen.

But she was still beautiful, men still called on her on occasion and she was smart too. She paid for her own freedom with the money she saved when she was a slave and opened her own pillow house in Meereen where she set her own hours, she chose the men she laid with, she made her own rules, she made sure her girls were looked after… Galezna was the mother Tanda never knew and cared for her far more than the beast who gave her up. She thanked the Seven every day she was sold to her and not to someone crueler.

“I’m heading out now,” Tanda told the older woman, handing her the house cut of her last customer.

“You and your star,” she chuckled, pocketing the coin. “At least we won’t have to hear about it for another year.”

Tanda pulled the cloak around her tighter. “It’s special. It’s appears once a year, it’s different then every other star in the sky,” she argued in her Fleabottom accent, flavored with the colorful accent of those who lived in the Bay of Dragons.

Galezna gave her a sad smile. “It’s still just a star, my Tanda.”

“Well nevertheless, I still want to go see it rise. You gave me permission, Galezna,” she reminded her.

“I know, I know, I’m not stopping you. “But if someone comes in and requests you special-.”

“I’ll come back, I promise.” Tanda lifted the hood of the cloak over her thick pale blonde curls (the only other thing she liked about herself apart from her eyes. ‘queen curls’ Galezna called them and Tanda always laughed and reminded her that she had no idea who her parents were. For all she knew, Tanda joked, she might be related to a queen. ‘The Queen of Whores maybe’ Galezna always tossed back.) “I’ll be in Rheagal’s Field.”

She was waved away with a flick of a copper colored hand. “Have fun staring at the sky.”

Tanda hurried out of the pillow house and glanced up at the sky. The day was beginning to wane and night would soon fall, she would have just enough time to get to the vacant meadow just outside the city gates if she hurried.

Shoving her large hands in her pockets, Tanda made her way through the crowded city. As usual people gave her a pretty wide berth but whenever a man’s eye would follow her, no matter how loose fitting the dress and cloak, Tanda would clutch the hilt of the rusted dagger she kept hidden in the folds of her dress. Meereen was especially full today; a ship arrived from Westeros and it’s sailors were out in full force after weeks of sea getting drunk on wine and spending the night with their cocks inside of countless cunts.

No one gave her too much of a bother and soon enough the lights and sounds of the city were behind her and a large green open field stretched out before her, abandoned save for the tall blonde. Usually at the far edge of the field there would be a group of Dothraki waiting to celebrate the appearance of the star as well. 

Rahsan Shierak, the Horselords called it. They believed it to be the first Khal to ever rise from a pyre. 

In Westeros; the people called it the Evenstar.

Ever since Tanda was old enough to remember seeing it, she knew that star meant _something_ , she just wasn’t sure what. The Westerosi shared a somewhat familiar tale of its origins as the Dothraki, believing the evenstar to be the very first King of Tarth, the ruler of a small little island out on the narrow sea (whose lord and sharer of the title always asked for Tanda specifically whenever he visited Meereen. He was cruel, ruthless, unkind, and would always have this knowing grin on his face when he was inside her, like he was in on some big grand secret only he knew.) 

Tonight there seemed to be an extra air of importance and mystery to it. For one there was usually always at least someone who would be out in the field to gaze at the bright blue star but now there was only her. It was going to be like the Evenstar was shining for her and her alone. There was no other sound but her breathing and the music of the meadow; a symphony of crickets and a light wind rustling over the jade colored grass and far off in the distance a lone wolf howled mournfully.

Tanda spread her cloak out on the grass and laid down on it, folding her hands on her chest and stared up at the darkening sky. It was cloudy out but she knew the light of the star would shine though even the thickest storm clouds. A soft smile played on her plump lips. She always loved looking at the stars. There was something freeing and comforting about knowing that there was no limit to the heavens, that the poorest slave and the richest master shared the same blanket of blue, that the same sun offered just as much warmth and light to her as it did to the men who claimed her body night after night…

Soon enough the sun sank below the horizon and then there it was. 

The evenstar laid nestled inside of a silver crescent moon and they both were surrounded by a series of clouds that almost- no. Not almost. Most definitely took on the shape of a lion with the blue star acting as the great cats sapphire colored eye. For some reason she couldn’t quite explain her heart began pounding against her chest. This star, the clouds, the bright silver crescent moon… this all meant something. She couldn’t begin to guess or to articulate what, but Tanda knew in her heart of hearts that the evenstar was shining for her tonight.

Nearly an hour later the sound of footsteps interrupted her musings. Tanda looked up and saw Zhallo, one of the other whores who worked for Galezna, walk towards her holding a torch. The tall blonde sighed as she sat up on the cloak and brought her knees to her chest. She didn’t wanna go back. Not yet. She wanted to be free to look at the evenstar for a while later.

As much comfort as the small white dots of light brought her, the bright blue one wrapped her in warm strong arms whenever she gazed on it for the short time it was in the sky.

“Just a little while longer,” she begged the summer islander in Valerian rather than the common tongue. “Please?”

“I'm sorry but he wanted a ‘very tall blonde who speaks the common tongue with green or blue eyes’. He paid… quote a lot for you if Galezna’s face was any indication.”

“He was THAT specific?”

Zhallo nodded. “Come.” She offered the frowning blonde a smile. “You are lucky, Tanda, he’s a dwarf. Rubbing a dwarf's head gives you luck, who knows what rubbing a dwarf's cock gets you.”

“A dwarf fucking a giant,” Tanda said dryly. “Terrific.”

The ebony skinned woman laughed. The blonde sighed as she looked up at the sky one last night. She had been wrong. The evenstar wasn’t shining for her. It wasn’t bringing her anything of meaning. It was nothing more than what Galezna said it was; just another star in the sky.

Tanda and Zhallo made their way back to the crowded city, even more crowded now that the stars and moon kissed the sky, and then back to the pillow house. Far off in the distance the great pyramid shined golden against the black sky where the ‘Counsel of Wise’ lived; three freedman, three former masters, and three shavepates (masters who support a progressive Meereen) chosen by the citizens of Meereen. The girls walked back into the crowded pillow house and Tanda met Galezna’s eye who gave her a sad smile and shrugged before she turned back to the freedman she was talking too.

“Give me five minutes and send him up,” Tanda told her friend before she headed up to her room. Sighing, and already exhausted, the tall blonde began to get ready. She stuffed a handful of mint leaves in her mouth and chewed them as she shed her dress and hung up her cloak. She choose a deep green silk dress that just came past her ass and made what little breast she had stand out and heels that added an extra three inches to her already large height (if he wanted a tall girl, he was going to get a tall girl). She quickly painted her face, choose to leave her soft waves hanging down and when she was looked at herself in the looking glass. 

She didn’t look half bad if she was being honest with bersf. Tanda was no great beauty but her blue eyes looked even bluer against the green silk and her sharp jaw complimented her painted face rather nicely plus she chose a pale color of stain to make her lips appear smaller. The dress she chose coupled with the heels made her already impossibly long legs go on for years.

A knock on her door interrupted her musings and after spitting out the used mint leaves in the chamber pot, Tanda called out, “come in,” in her most seductive voice, wiping away any hint of the Essoian accent she picked up over the last ten years (typically if they wanted someone who spoke the common tongue, coupled with wanting a blonde, they wanted a ‘foreigner’, a Westerosi.)

A beat and then her door opened and there he stood. He was a dwarf as Zhallo said, with pale green eyes and a head of dark blonde curls with a full beard that was more grey than blonde. He dressed himself in fine crimson and golden leather with an odd pin of a hand clutching a sword on his breast. A long scar left a deep mark in the middle of his face but he was almost handsome if she was being honest with herself. Handsomer than some of her other callers.

Two golden lions decorated both sides of the doublet.

The dwarf stared at her for a moment, slack jawed and wide eyed and Tanda chuckled low in her throat, doing her best to not let the staring unnerve her and motioned to herself. “This is what you wanted wasn’t it, My Lord?”

“Always call those from Westeros ‘My Lord’,” Galezna told her once. Even if they were bastard fishermen from Fleabottom. They appreciated the respect they knew they would get nowhere else, they appreciated the fact that even whores were lower than them.

He didn’t answer, he just stared. His green eyes grew wet.

 _I remind him of a lover,_ Tanda guessed.

She could work with that. Men like this were the best clients. Usually when customers came looking to replicate a time for a lost love or a dead wife they were extra gentle. 

Tanda walked over to him and kneeled down in front of him. It was what, she assumed, his lover who he cared enough about to shed tears over, would have done. 

“What’s your name, My Lord?” she asked in a soft, sweet tone.

He swallowed hard, green eyes searching over blue before he reached up with a trembling hand and laid it on her cheek. 

“You’re her,” he gasped in a Highborn accent, ignoring her question completely. A Westerlander perhaps? “You’re her… I found you. I found you.”

Tanda quirked her head to the side. “My Lord?”

“You’re her,” he said again, green eyes meeting blue. She watched as a tear spilled down his face. “You’re Joanna…”

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	3. Chapter 3

Tanda smiled sweetly at the dwarf and rested an oversized hand in his scarred face, wiping away the tears from his face with her thumbs. As it often was with those who came swimming someone who reminded them of a lover they preferred to call her by another name. “I’m whoever you want me to be, My Lord.” 

She ran her hands through his thick greying curls and leaned forward to kiss him but he took a step away from her, wiping the rest of the tears from his eyes himself. 

“Forgive me,” he said, “I’m not like my brother in that regard.”

“You’re shy,” Tanda said, ignoring the strange comment. She reached for his hand and pulled him back towards her, giving him a smile that could have been innocent or sensual depending on what you wanted to make out of it. “It’s okay. I’ll help you…”

She went to put his small hand on her breast and he pulled away again. “No, no, I… I’m sorry, I can’t. Not with you.”

Doing her best not to let her annoyance shine through she told him, “you were fairly specific in your request, My Lord.”

“I know. And I- I found exactly who I was looking for.”

“So what’s the problem?” 

If this Westerosi didn’t go through with what he came to her for then not only did Tanda lose out on the one special night she took to herself but she wouldn’t get paid. When Tanda didn’t get paid, Galezna didn’t get paid. And when Galezna didn’t get paid, that motherly affection she loved so much about her went away fairly quickly. 

The dwarf took a deep breath, rubbing his damp palms on his trousers. “Gods I wished I still drank…” he muttered with a longing look towards the bottle of wine Tanda put out before he turned back to the tall woman. “What’s your name?”

It wasn’t what he wanted to ask her, she knew, but rather than push she answered, hoping to get him back on track, “as I said it’s whatever you want it to be, My Lord.” 

“No I-... your _real_ name.”

“Tanda.”

“Any last name?” Tanda shook her head. “...Do you know anything of your family… Tanda?” he asked, her name soured on his tongue, like he was speaking some vile curse.

Tanda swallowed hard. Nervous at the sudden change of pace and questioning, she stood and casually made her way over to her bed where her dagger was hidden beneath the mattress. 

For _that_ kind of sex, he would need to pay first and it was three times the cost and if he didn’t offer up the gold he would be leaving with a few more scars then he came in with. So far she hadn’t seen anything that indicated he was willing to pay.

“I was born in the mountains beyond the Wall,” she told him, giving him the same story she told everyone who wanted a foreigner from Westeros. “In the Land of Always Winter. My grandfather was a giant, he-.”

“I didn’t realize those born north of the Wall had such strong Fleabottom accents,” the dwarf told her with a smug quirk of his eyebrow. She pursed her lips at him, no longer caring about hiding her annoyance with the short man. “Tell me the truth about your history. Please,” he added with a softened pleading.

“You tell me your name first,” she challenged.

He smiled at that. “My name is Tyrion. Tyrion Lannister of Casterly Rock.”

_Fuck._

Tanda never met the Hand of the Queen in person, but she knew enough about him to know this had to have been him; a scarred dwarf with a mess of curls atop his head and the pale green eyes of his father Tywin. His clothes were supple, expensive and custom fitted, even a whore could tell, they weren’t something a poor man could buy in a market place so he could perhaps pass himself off as nobility.

Galezna was going to kill her. She had not only gotten short with him, no pun intended, but they had given him a woman who wasn’t anywhere NEAR the physical beauty a Great Lord and hand of the Queen should have.

Tanda dropped to her knee and bowed her head. She had to fix this. “My Lord,” she said in a shaking breath. “I did not know I had been honored with the Hand of the Queen’s presence, I beg that you forgive me for my rudeness. Let me make it up to you.” 

She reached for his breeches but before she could even start to undo the laces he gently grabbed her large hands in his small ones and pulled them away from between his legs. When she looked up at his face she expected anger at her prior attitude or a smugness rich men so often had knowing they were in control but instead he looked at her with a kindness in his eyes she had never experienced before.

“I don’t want you to do that,” he told her again, softer. “All I want is the truth. You don’t need to do anything other than tell me the truth and then be willing to listen and I swear to the Old Gods and the New I will pay you well for your time.”

Tanda nodded. “Yes, My Lord.”

“Thank you. Now, please; tell me the truth about your family.”

“There’s not much to tell, My Lord. I’m an orphan who grew up in Fleabottom and then at eight I was sold to the Madame who runs this pillow house.”

“You were never told anything about your parents? You know absolutely nothing about your mother or… or your father?”

“The woman who ran the orphanage told me I’m the bastard daughter of a Fleabottom whore who gave me to the orphanage the day of my birth,” she answered. “I’m the lowest lowborn of them all, my mother didn’t even bother giving me a name.”

Tanda spat that last bit of information with a bitterness she knew she would carry with her as long as her body drew breath. How pathetic did you have to be to birth a child and not give them a name? To leave it up to a caretaker of an orphanage? Tanda didn’t blame her father for leaving, she doubted he even knew about her existence, but her mother carried her for nine months and was so eager to get rid of her she didn’t even bother to give Tanda something to call herself.

Inexplicable tears gathered in Tyrion’s eyes. “They told you that your- your mother was a whore?”

Tanda nodded. “And my father a fisherman.”

“ _A_ _fisherman_?”

“Have… have I upset you, My Lord?” she asked, suddenly nervous. Her eyes blinked rapidly, a tic people told her she had when she became anxious or overwhelmed with emotions. “I- I’m telling you the truth, I swear it. That’s what the caretaker told me.”

She saw the Hand take a deep breath, although why the news that a whore living in the middle of Meereen would have such a low upbringing was so upsetting to him she couldn’t understand. That should have been as commonly known as the fact that an edged blade drew blood was.

“No,” Tyrion said after he calmed down some. “No you hadn’t, Tanda. But there’s… there’s something you need to know about yourself. Your father wasn’t a fisherman, and your mother REALLY wasn’t a whore.” 

Another quirk of her head. “My lord?”

“Tyrion, Tanda. My name is Tyrion.” A deep breath and then; “and your name isn’t Tanda, it’s Joanna. Joanna of the Houses Lannister and Tarth.”

There it was. So he DID want her to pretend to be his wife… Pushing aside the disappointment that he was going back on his promise that he didn’t want to touch her she sauntered over to him.

“Is that who you want me to be, Tyrion?” she purred. “You want me to be the Lady of the Rock?”

“I want you to listen to me and I REALLY want you to stop trying to seduce your uncle.” She froze mid-step and looked down at him with big blue eyes. “In any case as far as I’m concerned even if they never married your mother is the Lady of the Rock.”

“I don’t do incest roleplay,” she said sharply after the shock had faded and the realizion hit her. “If you want that you’re gonna have to find another girl.”

“For the last time I am not trying to fuck you. I’m trying to tell you your father is Ser Jaime Lannister and your mother is Ser Brienne of Tarth.”

Tanda raised her brow. “Right,” she said disbelief soaking every word. “I’m actually a princess, I’m the secret hidden heir to the Seven Kingdoms.”

“No not a princess, a Highborn Lady and daughter of a great lord and knight. And by rights as of now you’re the heir to the Rock.”

“Highborn heir, daughter of a Lady, princess, it’s all the same because it’s all lies.”

“It isn’t. Your mother is Brienne of Tarth, your father is Ser Jaime Lannister.”

“So hang on, you’re saying my parents are the infamous Kingslayer, the handsomest man in the Seven Kingdoms.” She ignored the flinch at the harsh nickname of the infamous man she only knew from reputation and gossip. “Fucked the ugliest and ‘most honorable’,” Tanda barely held back her snicker at that lie she heard while she lived in Westeros. “Woman in Westeros?”

Tyrion raised a brow at that. “They didn’t _fuck,_ they loved one another. Second of all; why would you doubt your mother's honor?”

“She’s not my mother,” Tanda said sharply. “And her lord husband has come here and visited me many times, he’s told me the truth about her; that she’s a whore, that she’s a liar and a cheat, she’s dishonorable, no one on her island respects her.”

The lions pale green eyes grew wide at that. “He… Hayden Flatson, he’s… _visited_ you?”

“Many times. I’m Lord Hayden’s ‘favorite girl’,” she said dryly, pouring herself a glass of wine. She didn’t often drink wine but Tanda felt like with this visit it was warranted. 

“And he never… he never told you-.”

“Told me what? That his wife is secretly my mother and had an illicit affair with the Kingslayer that resulted in a bastard? No, he didn’t fill my head with those lies. He came to Essos on buisness, he would come here and fuck me,” _roughly and painfully_ _and smirking all the while,_ “then he left. That’s the only connection I have to Tarth.”

“That’s not true. You are Brienne of Tarth's daughter, you are Jaime Lannister’s cub-.”

“It’s time for you to go.”

“They always wanted you,” he continued ignoring her orders. “They loved you more than life itself, from the moment the Maester told her she was carrying you.”

Tanda pursed her lips and crossed her long arms across her chest. “Oh they loved me? They loved me; okay, so if what you say is true, I’m some secret Lannister heir, they were in love and all the rest… Why did they give me away? Why didn’t they ever come find me?”

“They didn’t have a choice,” Tyrion said, an air of desperation in his tone that, for just a moment, made her pause. 

Why was he so hellbent on making her believe this story? She had clients who had a rich fantasy life and concocted fantastical role play scenarios but this seemed different somehow. Those men knew she wasn’t really the Maiden came down to bless him with sex, they knew she wasn’t a lonely Lady who wanted the mason who came to work on her roof while her husband was away at war. But this story, this frantic need for her to believe him, a Highborn Lord and Hand of the Queen insisting this tale was one of truth…

“The Queen, she arrested and kept your parents in the dungeon the last few weeks of her pregnancy,” Tyrion explained. “Daenerys swore your mother and father would never hold you, never name you, she would never suckle you at her breast… The moment the healer pulled you from your mother the queen demanded you be brought to the orphanage as punishment for their crimes.”

“What crimes?” The way her voice shook slightly stunned her along with the sudden tears in her eyes. “What crimes did they commit that was so especially heinous that the queen would make their child suffer for it?”

“The crime that gave my brother his nickname first of all, he tried to help his… sister, Cersei Lannister, the Queen before Daenerys escape justice, he spoke of open treason and murdering the Queen…”

From what she heard of the Kingslayer that all seemed to fit the bill. “And Lady Brienne?” she asked. “What was her crime?”

She expected a list of crimes a mile and half long from the way her husband spoke of her, a dishonorable criminal, a liar, a cheat… Instead all Tyrion told her, with a sad smile making its way on his scarred face, was “her only crimes she’s ever commuted was she fought the man who murdered her father and she defended the man she loved.”

Tanda wrapped her long arms around her body and looked down at the well worn floor. She heard Tyrion take several steps forward. “Haven’t you ever wondered why the caretaker sold you into slavery when you were just eight years old? Risking life and limb to sell a little girl with no connections?”

“She needed money,” Tanda answered, the same thing the caretaker told her the day the unsullied soldier showed up to take her to the ship. “Selling me was the only way she knew how to earn it.”

“With all due respect I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you weren’t the prettiest child.” Tanda lifted her head up to throw a glare at the dwarf but didn’t argue the, unfortunately, truth. “Wouldn’t it have made sense for her to sell a child who was fair of face and get a lot more gold for her?” 

“I-... I don’t know,” she said, agitation that she couldn’t argue her way out of that one drowning her words. “Thats just what she told me. But this- no, no! This doesn’t make sense!” Tanda began pacing the floor, running her hands through her curls, curls that looked quite a bit like the man standing before her. “They would have looked for me, for her, for Joanna. If they cared for her and loved her as much as you say so they would have fought for me- for her.”

“Your mother was in a dungeon, your father was in the black cells, they couldn’t fight. I had every spy in my employ scouring Kingslanding for you for three weeks, the Lady of Winterfell threatened **_war_** to save you but then Daenerys brought an infants corpse into my chambers, she claimed the caretaker of the orphanage said you died of a chill in the night. It was a beautiful baby, blonde hair, pale blue eyes and she had this tiny strawberry shaped birthmark on the bottom of her foot.” 

Her heart sank. Disappointment replaced a fleeting spark of hope she didn’t even know she had until it was gone. “Well there you have it then,” Tanda said with a shrug. “I’m not some secret Highborn Lady, whoever that child was she’s dead and buried.”

“Yes, _that_ child is dead, never buried though, the Queen had her guards throw the babe into the Blackwater never to be seen again. You were born early, with all the stress the pregnancy brought, Brienne’s sisters died in the cradle as well… no one second guessed the Queen. And then about a year ago I came across this half-mad begger babbling about how ‘the queen took my baby, she took my baby, she wouldn’t even let me bury it’. I don’t know what made me take her seriously but I asked her if she remembered the babe and she told me she did. She described a beautiful little infant with blonde hair, blue eyes like ice and a birthmark on the bottom of her foot. I’ve been searching ever since, going to every whore house up and down Essos for a month straight asking for-.”

“A tall blonde who speaks the common tongue with green or blue eyes,” Tanda finished for him in a shocked mutter. 

Her heart was pounding against her ribs. No. No this couldn’t be real, this couldn’t be true. She was an orphan, a whore, more men had been inside her then she could even count, she didn’t even know how to read (one of the older girls in the pillow house tried to teach Tanda once but she could never make sense of the letters, reversing them and changing them around in her head). She couldn’t be a Lady, a Highborn Lady from one of the Great Houses at that. 

“You have the wrong girl,” she told him, voice trembling in emotions both terrifying and a shadow of hope. “I’m not who you think I am, I’m not this Joanna person, I’m… I’m nothing.”

The Hand looked Tanda dead in the eye, drawing himself up to his full height. “You are Joanna Lannister. You are a Lioness of the Rock and daughter of the Evenstar,” he said not in anger but in fierceness. “You have the blood of the Kings of the Westerlands and the Stormlands flowing through your veins, you had the North threaten war to try to save your life, you are NOT nothing, you have NEVER been nothing.”

At that moment, the Hand stood taller than even her. He reached into his shirt and retrieved not one but two bags of gold. Judging by size alone it was more money than she had ever seen in her life. “I’m docked at the northern dock, I’m sailing back to Westeros tomorrow at day-break, I’ll have the captain's cabin cleared out for you.” He tossed one of the bags on the bed. “That ones for your time,” then he pocketed the other bag. “And this one will be used to buy your freedom.”

“My… my freedom?”

Tryion nodded. “Your freedom. Which means you can choose to stay here, trapped in a single room that smells like cum and sweat making pennies by laying on your back for the rest of your life until one of those men downstairs sticks a dagger into you when he can’t get it up... or you can come with me, and discover who you really are, Joanna.”

Without so much as a blink of an eye Tyrion turned on the heel of his boot and walked out of the room, shutting the door out and muffling the groans and creaking beds and cries from the other room. When she was alone Tanda ran a hand through her hair and paced back and forth, back and forth, struggling to come up with a logical explanation to any of the arguments he laid out before her.

Even if she did believe him, and she still wasn’t sure if she did, to just drop her entire life? Leave all her friends, leave her home for the past 10 years, leave Galzena on the word of a dwarf with a bag of gold? Tanda took a deep breath before she made her way over to her bed and looked down at it, frowning. The bedding was stained with the three men she had been with just that day. Tanda found herself wondering just how many times she had slept on dirty sheets, how many time men had been inside her, how many drops of sweat has been dropped on her, how many time her face, her ass, her breasts had been slapped, how many times her name had been grunted in her ear… When she was little she had kept track of every man who laid with her, for some reason it made her feel better to know, to tell herself at least it wasn’t ten, then at least it wasn’t fifty, then a hundred, two hundred….

She lost track somewhere around number 350, and she was tired of not knowing the number, she was tired of smiling at men who acted like they were better than her when they were the ones paying to fuck her, she was tired of being fucked period…

She was tired, even if this was really what she was, of being just an orphan and a whore. She had to have come from somewhere right? Who’s to say she wasn’t the child of a tragic love story between nobility? Even if she wasn’t and this turned out to be a lie she would be back in Westeros and most of all she would be free…

 _Free. I would be free… Fuck it_.

Grabbing what little clothes she had that weren’t working clothes’ she shoved them into a sack along with the bag of gold and the rest of the money she managed to save up throughout the years. Tanda pulled on her boots and her cloak then hurried out the door and down the stairs. She found Galezna on her normal couch and hurried over to her, tears in her eyes. The dark haired Lhazareen looked up at her charge and gave her a sad watery smile before she stood up, taking Tandas face in hers. The bag of gold Tyrion handed her moments ago on the stand beside her. “You don’t have to do this,” she said softly. “You don’t have to believe his stories, you don’t have to go with him.”

“I know,” Tanda said, putting a hand overtop hers. “I know, Galezna, but I want to. I need to, if there’s a… a chance not even to believe him about all he said but a chance to be free, I have to take it.”

Galezna looked at her for a moment before she leaned in and kissed her softly on the brow and wrapped her arms around her. “You’ll always have a place here,” she whispered to the woman she raised for the past ten years.

“I know.” Tanda wiped away her tears as best she could but they didn’t seem to want to cease. “I’ll never forget you,” she whispered. “Ever. I love you.”

“I love you too, my Tanda.” 

The two women pulled apart and Galezna laid a hand in her pale cheek. “Send a raven if you need me. I can be wherever you are in the drop of a hat.” She reaches up on her tip toes and laid another kiss on her brow. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

“I love you too.” 

Tanda had to leave. She had to leave now otherwise she never would go so, without a look back, Tanda left the pillow house she had called home for ten years and as she walked out the door her body and soul felt a thousands times lighter than it felt in ages. 

Tanda was free. Tanda was free and, she realized with a smile as she ran towards the northern dock hoping they wouldn’t mind if they claimed her cabin the night before…

Please Review!


	4. Chapter 4

Tanda sat atop her horse huddled under her cloak and a thick fur blanket but even that didn’t stop her from shivering and her teeth chattering.

“I thought Joanna’s mum ruled on an island?” she asked Tyrion once she realized they were sailing north rather than west. “If I’m her why aren’t we sailing there?”

“If a 6’0 blonde with blue eyes shows up on Tarth everyone will know exactly what and who you are,” the Hand explained. “Lord Hayden will raven Daenerys and within a day Tarth will be nothing but a smoking ruin in the sea.”

“So then why don’t I go to the Westerlands instead? You said I rule them both right?”

“It’s just going to take time to put things in place,” Tyrion told her, much to her dissatisfaction. “The south isn’t safe for you, and the Northerners protect their own.”

“I’m not a Northerner though. I’m, according to you, a Lannister. Last I checked those two things were pretty mutually exclusive.”

“Your father might be hated from the Wall to the Riverlands but your mother was the only Southerner I’ve ever seen a Northmen follow in battle.”

“Really?”

“Well… The Knights of the Vale followed her but the Vale is a very strong Northern ally.” Tanda rolled her eyes at the technicalities. “Anyway; you have very powerful friends in Winterfell.”

_ I don’t have friends here _ , Tanda thought bitterly as she made her way back to her guarded cabin (having a lone woman on a long sea voyage, one with her former profession at that, made her easy pickings for less scrupulous sailors)  _ I only had friends in Essos. _

Three weeks later as she sat freezing in her saddle as the snow fell all around her Tanda wished for nothing more then to be back in Meereen. Meereen and it’s hot days and cool nights, with no sub zero temperatures and blistering winds and heavy snowfalls (of which she had never even seen until they docked in White Harbor.)

“How long until we get there?” she asked, teeth chattering violently, as Tyrion came up to ride alongside her. 

He pointed towards a large grey blob far off in the distance. “That’s Winterfell. We should be there within half an hour.”

She pulled the furs around her tighter. “And will they have heat?”

“Of course.”

“Good.” Tanda shuddered as an icy blast of wind stabbed her in the face, making her eyes water. “Gods, I hate the fucking North.”

Tyrion laughed at that and when she asked what was so funny he just said how much she reminded him of her father.

As promised less than an hour later they rode through the main gate of the ancient castle. It was all grey stone and white snow, not a hint of color to be found anywhere. Even the people mulling about seemed drab and dreary but hard as well. A small crowd had come to meet the tiny traveling party of Tyrion, Tanda and the few guards who rode with them from Essos. I’m the center stood a tall older women, not as tall as Tanda but fairly leggy, with long pin straight red hair and a pale white face dressed in a grey and black gown with a heavy grey fur cloak worth more than everything Tanda had ever owned in her life she wagered. She was regal, elegant, beautiful, an old soul behind a fair face, the perfect Highborn beauty... This woman was a Lady in every way and Tanda suddenly felt self-conscious about everything from her pale straw colored curls down to her too-big feet.

Beside the woman stood a stout man with the warmest brown eyes Tanda had ever seen who had a far harder time hiding his tears then the woman beside him, dressed similarly as the other men in hard boiled leathers and furs and a steel direwolf broach holding together his cloak. While her face betrayed nothing the way she was clutching the man’s hand Tanda could tell she was doing everything she could not to have her emotions crack the impassive stoic mask she wore and even then the tall blonde could see the tears fighting to come free and the tremble in her painted lips.

“Tanda,” Tyrion said after the two of them dismounted. “May I present to you the Lord and Lady of Winterfell, Sansa and Podrick Stark. Lady Stark, Pod; this is Tanda. This is their daughter.”

Sansa took a slow step towards her and then another and another until she was right in front of her. She looked over Tandas pale plain face, her pale blonde hair, her slightly jutted chin, her long body… But it wasn’t until she looked into her deep blue eyes that tears finally spilled down the wolf’s ivory face. Sansa wrapped her arms around Tanda and buried her face in her broad shoulder. 

“I’m sorry,” the redhead whispered softly through her tears as Tanda stood there frozen, unable to comprehend why the Lady of the most ancient and noble house in Westeros was hugging her like they were old friends. “I’m so sorry…”

If that wasn’t enough, the Warden of the North himself was hugging her next, weeping and clutching her cloak, also apologizing for sins Tanda still wasn’t sure was committed against her.

She looked back at Tyrion who just smiled sadly and gave her a small nod, answering a question she hadn’t even been willing to ask herself. 

Sansa pulled away first. She took the girl's face in her soft hands and gently stroked her wind burnt cheeks. “You look just like her...”

“The chin and nose is all lion though,” Pod added.

The Lady of the North nodded in agreement before she finally noticed Tanda was still shivering. “Gods, you must be freezing. I’ll show you to your chambers and have one of the girls draw you a nice hot bath.”

She glanced back at Tyrion who gave her a nod of encouragement, letting her know it was okay to accept the offer, before she turned back to the couple.

“Thank you, My Lady,” Tanda said, doing her best to lessen her Fleabottom and eastern accent. 

After a quick tour of the castle and a promise to see her at supper time, Tanda was shown to her room. It was bigger than the whole main floor of the pillow house with a large stone fireplace, a wardrobe of considerable size, a large bath that even with Tandas size she could have fit comfortably in, and a large plush feather bed laden with soft satin sheets and thick fur blankets as soft as silk with several large windows giving her a gorgeous view of the snow covered fields and forests. 

Tanda had gone from a tiny one room hovel that stunk of cum and sweat to chambers fit for royalty (which was exactly what these chambers were used for she discovered later. When the royal family would come for a visit this is where the Starks of Winterfell would put them.)

It was too much too soon.

“My… my Lady, I thank you,” Tanda stammered out as she gazed around the room that was far too luxurious for the likes of her. “But I’m not… I couldn’t- I- I don’t… I’m not worthy of accommodations such as these.”

“You are a Lannister of Casterly Rock,” Sansa told her. “And the daughter of the woman who saved mine and my husbands life more times than I can count.” She lifted her chin up so she could look in her eyes. “No one has ever deserved to sleep here more so than you.”

Sansa left Tanda alone after letting her know supper would be in five hours, plenty of time for her to get settled in (not that she had much to settle. She had three torn dresses, one pair of ratty boots and a cloak) and soon after the Lady of Winterfell left a young girl came and began to draw the promised bath, filling it with expensive perfumes and salts, which was a shock in and of itself, but when she went to help Tanda undress she retreated.

“I’m fine,” she promised the servant. “I can wash myself.”

“Are you sure, My Lady?”

Tanda pursed her lips. She had heard this was how Highborn ladies bathed, in large glamourous tubs, with people who washed their hair and made sure the water stayed hot and perfumed. She would be lying if she said she hadn’t always been a little curious…

So after she undressed she got in the tub, moaning as the hot water loosened every stiff and frozen muscle she had. The serving girl washed her hair, running gentle long fingers through her curls and massaging her scalp and then ran a washcloth with peach scented soaps over her pale skin, scrubbing the dirt and dead skin away until the water was almost black. Afterwards she combed and brushed her hair until it was a bed of soft pale curls and then Sansa walked in, her arms full of thick clothes and something wrapped in an old cloak.

“There’s no women’s clothes here big enough to fit you,” Sansa explained apologetically as she handed her a set of men’s clothing along with a pair of fur lined boots. “I promise to have you some dresses made once the tailor gets your measurements.”

“This is fine, thank you,” Tanda said as she took the clothes from the shorter woman, already able to tell they would be considerably warmer than her thin dresses. 

Sansa took a deep breath before she held out the rough looking cloak. Tanda unfolded it, expecting something to fall out of it but instead it merely fell open to reveal it was just that- an old cloak that smelled of age and cedar. 

It was heavy, roughspun and checkered black and grey with a grey and brown fox fur lined neck. Two thick leather straps criss crossed in front holding it in place so there no need for a brooch or clasp and it was lined with leather rather than fur like most ladies cloaks would be. It was the plainest most simple cloak Tanda had ever seen which was why she couldn’t figure out why Sansa was looking at it with tears in her eyes or why she had presented it as some great gift.

“She didn’t take it to Kingslanding when we went down there,” Sansa explained, fingering a loose thread in the cloak. “She was always practical, your mother. She always thought so much as an extra sock might burden her horse down.”

All of a sudden this plain simple cloak felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds.

“This was hers? This was my… this belonged to Lady Brienne?” Tanda asked, looking down at it. 

Sansa nodded. “I left the castle with nothing but a single dress. Any cold weather clothes she had she gave to me to keep me warm, so when we took Winterfell back in the Battle of the Bastards and she returned from Riverrun I had this made for her.” The wolf gave her a sad smile and ran her hands over the cloak. “She gave me the literal clothes off her back so I wouldn’t freeze on the way to the Wall, this was the least I could do for her.”

Tanda looked down at the cloak, letting her fingers run over one of the thick leather straps. That didn’t sound like the woman Lord Hayden told her about; the selfish cruel Lady of Tarth who let their people starve. 

“Anyway,” Sansa said, finally pulling her hand away. “I’ll let you get dressed. The castle and the grounds are yours and supper is in about three hours.”

“Thank you, My Lady.”

Sansa laid a hand on Joanna’s cheek for a moment, gently stroking her pale face. “I am sorry,” she told her again. “I never should have believed the Dragon Queen about your death, I should have fought harder for you.”

_ Yes you should have; but it wasn’t your responsibility, it was my supposed parents _ . But instead all Tanda did was assure her it was okay and then bid her farewell. She pulled on the breeches, linen undershirt and fur lined jerkin without issue that fit fairly well, but when it came time to slip on the cloak she hesitated. She ran a hand over the scratchy sharp fabric, the smooth leather straps, the soft fox fur on the neck… It would be big on her. The shoulders were a bit too broad and it would hang down a ways past where a cloak should end, plus it was ugly besides, nothing feminine about it whatsoever. What kind of Highborn woman was this Brienne of Tarth anyway?

No. No, this wouldn’t work. 

Tanda tossed the oversized cloak on the bed and grabbed her crimson one from the door where she had hung it up, pulling it around her and inhaling the familiar scents of Meereen, of river waters besides the Great Pyramid, of the peppers and spices that the traders brought to market, of Galezna’s rose scented perfume… 

Her eyes filled with tears at the thought of her old friend, her protector, her mother in all but name. Galezna loved roses. More than anything. When she was younger Tanda would go to the market and spend a copper on a rose to give to her, somewhat with the hopes that she would lessen the amount of hours she had to work but mostly because Tanda knew how much she loved them. 

Galezna would have came to look for her if someone stole her away. Galezna would have fought for her, she would have given her more comfort and protection than just some old cloak to wear. She had saved Tanda from that wretched orphanage; what had this Brienne of Tarth ever done for her, The Kingslayer as well, if they were indeed her real parents?

All of a sudden she could barely stand to look at that ugly wretched cloak. She grabbed the old piece of fabric and tossed it into the wardrobe, shoving it in the far corner and stuffing it in the deepest crevice with a kick for good measure. She didn’t care if that one would have been worlds warmer, the red one that she bought in Essos suited her fine.

With that out of the way Tanda pulled on the boots, hid her dagger she kept on hand up her sleeve and left the room. 

Winterfell was ancient, and big. Twice she got lost exploring the castle and then then she hadn’t covered even a fraction of the vast keep. Eventually she found her way outside, pleasantly pleased that the snow had stopped, for now, and was instead just cold. But the clothes Sansa gave her kept her fairly warm (had she used the older cloak she would have been too stifling, Tanda tried to tell herself as she shivered at a gust of wind. The red one was fine.) The grounds were full of people; men and boys practicing swordsmanship, maids, squires, stableboys, cooks… all of them hurrying to and fro to do their duties but nearly all of them had time to at least eye the exceptionally tall woman in the courtyard. Not wanting to deal with the stares Tanda left the courtyard and found her way into the Godswood and came upon a large weirwood tree. She shuddered as an icy wind whipped around her and a cold settled deep in her bones. 

She heard the Northmen worshipped weirwood trees but she thought they were just that; trees. Trees with carved faces and deep red sap, nothing more. But there was something ancient about the white tree, something ancient and magical, something that most assuredly did not want her in this sacred wood.

“This isn’t your place.”

Tanda jumped and had to bite back a scream as she whipped around, finding a handsome boy no older than seventeen who quickly threw up his hands in surrender.

“Forgive me My Lady, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he told her apologetically, his voice as Highborn as Sansa’s had been. He dressed in leathers black as pitch with bright yellow stitching and a heavy yellow cape. His black hair was closely cropped and he had the solemn serious grey eyes she had seen in the tapestries on Waterfalls halls and he was tall as well, nearly as tall as her with only an inch or so of difference. 

Tanda ran a nervous hand through her pale yellow curls. “I- I’m sorry. Lady Sansa, she said I had free reign of the castle, I- I wasn’t aware this was off limits.”

He chuckled softly. “It’s not, My Lady, you aren’t in any trouble.”

“Then what do you mean this isn’t my place?”

The boy motioned to the large white weirwood tree. “My mother said that the Old Gods hate the Lannisters for all the pain they caused the Starks. That’s why they’ll never feel comfortable in a Godswood.” He shared a smile that told her how crazy he found his mother’s beliefs. “According to her at least.”

Tanda shook her head and pulled her cloak around her tighter. “I’m not a Lannister.”

“That’s not what my aunt and nuncle say.” He offered her a hand. “Ned of the House Baratheon, first born son of Arya and Gendry Baratheon and heir to the Stormlands.”

“Tanda.” She took his hand, raising a brow when he brought the back of her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to it. “So if you’re heir to the Stormlands what are you doing in the North?”

“I was fostered in Winterfell on my twelfth name day,” he explained. “I’ve been here ever since.”

Tanda gave him a sad little smile. “Highborns really don’t like to have their children around do they?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean your parents shipped you off to a frozen wasteland, mine never even bothered to come find me…” 

Ned frowned at her. “Everyone thought you were dead. 

“But here I am, supposedly. It took them eighteen years to figure out the Queen might have been lying? Also I feel perfectly fine in the Godswood. It’s far more peaceful than a sept to be honest.” A howling wind blew, cutting her with a thousand knives and she shuddered, pulling her cloak around her tighter. “Thank you for the introduction, Lord Ned, but I must be going now.”

Without another word Tanda turned on her heel and stormed away as best she could in the deep snow, doing her best to ignore that the further she got from that stupid tree the less tense she felt. She made a beeline to Tyrion’s chambers, slamming on the door.

“I want to go home,” she demanded when he finally answered the door.

Tyrion sighed as he shut the door behind her. “I told you, if you go to Tarth or Casterly Rock you’ll be noticed by the qu-.”

“I don’t want to go there, I want to go home to Essos. To Meereen.”

His face fell. She could see the panic screaming in his pale green eyes. “You-... Tanda, you just arrived in Westeros. Your parents-.”

“Never cared enough to look for me, they never cared enough to question the Queen. How do you even know I’m this woman, this ‘Joanna Lannister’ in the first place? What if the Queen was telling the truth and their baby is a pile of waterlogged bones in the bottom of Blackwater? You don’t know for certain I’m their child.”

“I do know.” The way he kept his voice calm and steady angered her as much as the situation as a whole. “You’re a 6 foot tall blonde with Tarth eyes, the most beautiful eyes in the Stormlands. You have Cersei’s jaw, your father's nose, my curls… You are Joanna, of the Houses Lannister and Tarth.”

She shook her head. “I’m not.”

“You are.”

Sighing, she wrapped her arms around herself and stared down at the floorboards. “I want Galezna here,” Tanda muttered. “She said she would come if I needed her. I want you to send a raven asking her to come to Winterfell.”

Tyrion’s face grew stern. “You don’t need her, Tanda. You’ll meet your real mother soon enough.”

“I do need her. She’s more my mother than the tall blonde who let the Queen sell me.”

“She didn’t have a choice, she was locked in a dungeon! She fought with  _ everything  _ she had to keep you safe, your father offered to be  _ burned alive by dragon fire  _ if the queen returned you to your mother.”

“Are they still there? In that dungeon, are they still there?”

Tyrion pursed his lips. “No,” he said sharply. “Your mother returned to Tarth and your father remains in the Red Keep as a hostage.”

Tanda let out a humorless laugh, “So they had some terribly tragic beautiful romance but she left him. They loved me, they would do anything for me but neither of them ever came to find me. They had to rely on my supposed uncle to put the pieces together. None of this is adding up!”

The Hand walked over to a small pitcher on the table beside his bed and poured himself a large glass of water infused with cane sugar and lemons. “The marble workers on Tarth were rebelling,” he told her as he sat down on the feather bed. “Lord Hayden needed to marry Lady Brienne to keep the peace and keep his lordship. Brienne agreed ONLY if the Queen would release Ser Jaime from the black cells and pardon him for all his crimes. Daenerys agreed only on the condition that he stay a hostage in Kingslanding. If her husband was found dead in a ditch or if Brienne ever tried to leave Tarth, the Queen would burn your father alive, and vice versa if you’re father ever tried to escape Kingslanding. My brother said he would consent to the terms but if Hayden ever raised a hand to your mother or if she were to befall some mysterious illness or injury after she gave him an heir, the Queen would strip away Hayden’s land and titles and give them to Ser Jaime.”

Tanda swallowed hard. The threats weren’t made against them, she realized, the Queen threatened one with hurting the other.

“If staying miserable and trapped for years just to keep the other one safe doesn’t qualify as a ‘terribly tragic beautiful romance’,” Tyrion said rather sadly as he stood from the bed. “Then I don’t know what does.”

Tanda stayed silent as the hand drowned the rest of the water in his cup and made his way out of his chambers, pausing just briefly in the doorway without looking towards her. “If you want that woman here with you, of course I’ll raven her,” he sighed.

“I do,” she said quickly.

“Then it’ll be done. But the secrets spread to too many people already, even in the North there’s little birds who would sing to the Queen for the right place. You can’t tell her who you truly are.”

_ I don’t even know who I truly am _ , she thought to herself bitterly but rather than speak she just nodded. Tyrion gave her a curt nod before he pursed his lips. “Your mother loves you, Tanda. As does your father. Think on this while you wait for your Galezna to arrive. She was paid a hefty sum by the Queen herself and had the Master of War deliver you personally to her door to take you on… You don’t think she knew you were more than just the bastard of a whore and a fisherman?”

Leaving her with more questions then she had answers too, Tyrion turned on the heel of his boot and left.

Please Review!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brienne AND Jaime next chapter! Whoop whoop!


	5. The Lion and the Crescent Moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO sorry for the long update, it’s just been hard to get back into the fic mindset, I would seriously write like one sentence a day and that’s it, like nothing was clicking at all no matter what I tried so please don’t hate me, and I hope you enjoy lol.

Back, fourth, advance, retreat, parry, uppercut, stab, hack, slash, repeat.

Brienne of House Flatsun, the Lady of Tarth and Evenfall Hall, grunted as she fought with the blunted steel. The foe in front of her was a knight near as tall as her but not nearly as broad. His steps were too wide and his feet weren’t squared the way they should have been and she could have, if she were so inclined, taken him out within the first few moments of their bout however she needed the practice and at the end of the day even a lackluster knight was a better sparring partner then a strawman.

But she was getting tired, and she had other things to see to so, with a fast bit of footwork and a loud yell, Brienne knocked him to the dirt, kicked away the tourney sword and pointed the tip of her blade at his throat. 

“Yield,” the knight panted, wiping the sweat from his face with his hand. “I yield.” Brienne offered him her hand and he took it a nod of thanks before he pulled her to his feet. “I see you’re still as strong as an ox, M’Lady,” he laughed through his heavy breathing. “I haven’t been bested like this in a while.”

“And you will again Ser if you don’t improve your footwork.” 

“Aye, M’lady. That’s always been a weakness of mine. I’ll work on it.”

After Brienne put away her sparring sword she made her way back into the white keep. It was as beautiful as it was the day Bastian Evenstar, the very first King of Tarth, slept in the Lords Chambers, the marble was just as flawless and the servants kept the castle just as clean as they always had. But there was a darkness that settled over Evenfall and the island as a whole the past sixteen years, growing more noticeable and foreboding with each passing day. 

Brienne walked into her chambers and stripped herself of the black armor she had commissioned, setting it in its proper place before she washed the sweat and dirt from her face and dressed herself in a inky black dress and a metal brooch on her breast of a white skull with sapphires for eyes, the new sigil of Tarth.

The sun and moon had been forbidden to fly on the island under threat of punishment, either a long stay in the dungeon or a trip to the Wall, going on sixteen years. No sunbursts or crescent moons were allowed at all except for one room in the castle. A room that Brienne forbade, under threat of death, no matter what the penalty, Hayden to change in any manner.

Joanna’s nursery. 

The room Selwyn designed was kept tidy not by servants, but the Lady of Tarth herself. The tiny pink dresses and little blue shirts, the red and gold bodices and skirts stayed laundered by her hand so they didn’t grow stiff or stink of misuse, the star and moon and sun mobile stayed dusted and to this day hung above the wooden crescent moon crib, the marble lions that guarded her room stood strong and fierce and unchipped all these years, and the Tarth sigil, the  _ real _ sigil that existed since the Andals first landed on the island, was carved onto the wooden door and had stayed there even as the other banners were tore down. It was the last reminder of the family that ruled there for thousands of years.

But no longer. Now their sigil was a black field and the blue eyed skull, a reminder to all on the island what their new Evenstar was capable of.

“It’s a sigil that’ll strike fear into the hearts of my enemies,” he explained to Brienne the first time she saw the sail of the ship that would take her home. “To let everyone know the island is mine now, not the Tarths.”

The first time Brienne defied him, boldly wearing the colors she and her ancestors wore their whole lives rather then the macabre black and white dresses and skirts, Hayden threatened to hit her and when she reminded him of the terms he instead ravened Daenerys who sent back a letter saying to obey her Lord Husband or Jaime would suffer the consequences. 

She’d worn black every day since. Appropriate actually, she thought sometimes, considering how much she had to mourn. Her father, the fall of her House, the life she envisioned with Jaime, all of them represented in the new dark colors of her House but none so much as the death of her daughter. A small little thing with pale blue eyes and soft silky blonde hair that the Queen allowed her to hold three weeks after the birth. Brienne wept and sobbed for hours as she rocked the corpse child back and forth and clutched it to the breast Joanna was supposed to suckle at. Eventually the unsullied took Joanna away and minutes later a scream, Jaime’s scream, flittered up from the black cells below.

After dressing she checked herself in the tall looking glass. Lines were starting to map her face and more and more of her white blonde hair was fading to grey but her body was as strong as ever. She didn’t have that ‘pudge’ that most older women had, her muscles were still firm, her skin still tight… That was the only reason she was able to still practice her swordsmanship, as a matter of fact. She reminded Hayden that since he was already cursed with an ugly wife would he really want a soft fat one as well?

After she re-plaited her hair, he refused to let her cut it short or allow his wife to wear shirts and trousers outside of her training, Brienne made her way not to the Great Hall where business would normally be discussed, but to the servants quarters and there, hidden away in the furthest room on the lowest floor, Ser Hugh and Maester Waldon were waiting for her.

“My Lady,” the aging Maester greeted her with a nod of his head as he struggled to his feet. Brienne waved away the courtesy with an understanding smile. He was getting so old, he was so close to receiving the stranger’s kiss and Brienne wanted nothing more than to relieve him of his duties, to set him up with a house besides the sea with servants to tend to him for his last few days but every time she offered he refused.

“A maester serves until the last breath passes his lips or the last wit leaves his head,” he would tell her, clutching the blue crystal that signified he was sworn to the Evenstars House. “My body is failing, My Lady, but my mind is sharp as ever.” Besides, he would remind her, a new maester might not be willing to go behind their Lords back to have meetings with his wife. 

Ser Hugh however stood up as bold and strong as ever and graced her with the proper respects. She returned the polite head nod before she pulled up a chair and sat down in front of her two closest friends she had on the isle.

“Has the rebellions stopped on the south-west mine?” Brienne asked, getting right down to business. If Hayden wouldn’t listen to his advisers, if his solution to every problem was to just tax and threaten the smallfolk more and more until they were starving then someone had to run this island.

“I managed to get word to Ser Edrich,” Waldon told her, every word slow and ancient, like every syllable took a world of effort. “He promises if you can find a way to give the workers at least 350 for every block, they’ll start mining again.”

Over the years Hayden had lowered the workers percentage from 500 dragons out of every 800, which had been the standard since Aegon conquered Westeros, to 400, then 300, then 200, and now it was down to a measly 100 dragons while 700 came to Evenfall. But the less they were paid, the less they worked, some stopping altogether, and those that did work made sloppy work of it. The marble itself was still the finest in the world but the blocks would arrive chipped and damaged, cracked and split. There wasn’t even a minimum degree of care and effort put into the work anymore, and Brienne could not blame the miners one single bit.

They had to shut down eight out of the seventeen mines thanks to the rebellions and refusals to work, with many of them turning to other trades or getting out of Tarth altogether. 

Brienne gnawed at her plump lip. “I can do 250,” the tall knight finally decided. “I can’t go higher than that. Hayden hardly concerns himself with the treasury but at that amount he would know some of the money was missing. Not to mention the less we’re willing to pay, the less they’re willing to work, the less marble gets mined and sold, so we’re not even taking in a half of what we used to even with the exuberant taxes. 250 is all I can afford to give away. Do you think that’ll be sufficient?”

“The small folk understand the position of trying to work around your husband, they know whatever they get you risked your neck to give it to them.”

“I wish I could do more,” she lamented sadly. “Tarth NEEDS them to work, the marble HAS to be mined if only to get food on their tables but I will not ask them to work on slave wages, I won’t. And tell the other foremen that I’m able to give 250 to them as well if they’ll cease with the rebellions.”

“The southern tip is only asking for 200 per block. Do we meet his demands or exceed it?”

“Exceed it,” she said at once, and the proud smile that lit up Waldons face made him look ten years younger.

After the rest of the issues that were supposed to fall to Haden were taken care of it was near supper time. With a heavy sigh, Brienne made her way to the Great Hall. 

The heavy tables of marble were still there but were dyed black and white rather than blue and pink, a depressing reminder of the island's new Lordship. Hayden sat at the Lords seat, already knee-deep in his dinner of buttered crabs and chicken basted with honey and Dornish peppers. 

He had grown heavier in his years as Lord. Age along with an overabundance of meat and mead and soldiers to do his bidding tended to do that to a man, but he wasn’t so far yet it was comical and his face was still mostly sharp, his green-blue eyes still bright and his sandy blonde hair was still soft curls only now it was peppered with salt and pepper. 

To any other woman he was handsome enough to open your legs for. For Brienne- he was a thousand times uglier than even she. Ever since he drove her father's sword into his back he was ugly. The day she looked at him in the sept as she took his name he was ugly, the day she found him with his first whore in their marriage bed a week after their vows were said he was ugly. Hayden Flatsun was the ugliest man alive in Brienne's eyes, and he was her husband, from that fretful sorrowful day in the sept until her last. 

Brienne walked the length of the hall and sat besides him. It was near a miracle how even after all these years the mere sound of his chewing could still drive her up the wall. Brienne thanked the serving girl who brought out her plate and a glass of watered wine.

“Where have you been all day?” Hayden asked, pieces of chicken flying from his mouth and landing on the table and his shirt. 

“Training,” she answered as she took a small bite of crab. 

He took a large swig of wine, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “I’m having a woman over,” he said rather flippantly as he ripped a leg from the chicken and took a large bite. “Find somewhere else to sleep tonight.”

Even after all these years she wished with her whole heart, with everything she had, that it didn’t sting when her husband, a man she loathed to his rotten core, blatantly admitted to forsaking their wedding vows. But she knew better than to protest his extracurricular activities.

She wouldn’t risk Jaime’s life for something so tedious. He agreed to be a prisoner just so Hayden wouldn’t strike her or force her into his bed, the least she could do was keep her mouth shut when her husband was flagrantly unfaithful. Besides, in the grand scheme of things, she would rather him be inside some well paid whore than her any day.

Once a week for nearly a year Hayden tried for an heir. Sweaty painful lackluster fumbling in the dark with zero pleasure to be had on her part. And for all his talk about how ugly and unattractive he found her, he sure had no problem getting it up at the first sight of what was between her long legs. But thankfully her womb never quickened again after Joanna. 

Eventually it was made obvious what the problem was. It didn’t matter that she conceived with Jaime, it didn’t matter that their very first week together the Lion managed to get a cub in her, it didn’t matter that none of Haydens whores throughout the years managed to have a bastard. It was all Brienne's fault he didn’t have an heir, something must have been wrong with her. 

Waldon encouraged the knight once to take a lover, get pregnant and pass it off as Hayden’s but she refused. No matter what he did to her, she swore a vow to be faithful and honorable to her husband. Besides; there was only one man she would ever consider breaking her oath of marriage for much less having children with and he was currently a hostage in Kingslanding. 

Brienne pushed a piece of crab around her plate, frowning down at it. This was her life now. An unfaithful husband who made it his life’s mission to make her miserable, married to a man she hated, who killed her father and was running her home into the ground, her only child dead, her true love surrounded by dragons… 

Tears pricked at her eyes and she found that she wasn’t as hungry as she thought and excused herself for the night. Hayden said nothing, not even to inquire about the suddenness of her departure or the sadness in her eyes.

She made her way to the roof of Evenfall and leaned on one of the smooth white walls, gazing up at the starry sky. A cold salty wind was blowing but she hardly felt it. She found what she was looking for amongst the billions of stars and an ache filled her from head to foot. The lion was shining as bright as it always was, nestled just a few feet from the crones lantern. Brienne studied the collection of stars that made up its mane, its paw, the fur, the long tail and felt a cold tear steam down her cheek. 

She missed him. So much. It had been sixteen years since she last laid eyes on him, Hayden refused to let her travel to Kingslanding, and she thought of him every day since. She wasn’t sure if he had taken another lover, if he longed for her as much as she longed for him, if he dreamed of the life they were supposed to share as often as she did, of a pride of cubs, of happiness and laughs and love making, of tenderness and kindness and gentle caresses…

She shook her doubts away before her eyes traced the strong king back of the lion in the sky. He had too love her still. She knew him, she knew he loved her, he proposed to her, he wanted her to be a Lannister, he wanted to be her Lord Husband, he wanted her to mother his children… Time couldn’t stop that, nor would distance. 

“I miss you,” Brienne whispered into the endless stretch of sky. “So much, Jaime. So much…”

A shooting star streaked across the black sky, a silver tail in its wake, flying high above the Lion. Somewhere out there she knew he was saying a prayer that they would find one another in their dreams, just as she would.

“Please,” she breathed, blue eyes following the comet. “Please Mother, Maiden, Warrior, Father, Crone, Smith… let me see him again. Please. I’ll do whatever you wish, I just need to see him one more time.”

A gentle wind blew a soft kiss on her maimed cheek, the way he always liked to do to prove to her he didn’t find her repulsive, that he saw it as proof of strength and love.

For half a moment it almost felt like his lips had brushed against her.

A teary smile broke out on her plump lips. Someway, even though she knew how very far apart they were, it helped to think they might have been wishing on the same bright star. Rather the Gods heard her or not, she knew Jaime had, someway, and that was all that mattered to her. He was all that mattered and she knew, somehow, he would return to her.

Someday.

* * *

He pictured Brienne. He thought of her neck, her arms, her lips, her breasts… He thought of the way she tasted, thought of the way she squirmed when his face was buried between her sinfully long legs, he thought of her whimpers, her gasps, her deep voice lilting as she begged for him….

Jaime blocked out all that was surrounding him. The moans that were too high pitched, the nails that were far too sharp, the small body that was too small and soft and slender, not hard and strong…. he felt none of her, he saw none of her, he heard none of her. 

He went away inside and he was with Brienne. Only Brienne.

“Jon,” the dragon queen gasped as he moved inside her, a name he was more than used to hearing from her lips. His rough hand fondled the too large breasts just the way she liked, he bit the fleshy part of her ear the way she knew he liked, and he had her short stubby legs wrapped firmly around his waist the way he knew she liked.

Not to bring her the most pleasure, but so he could get it over with as quick as possible.

His stump stayed motionless beside him. He would not touch her with that. Not that Daenerys objected to it, but because it was hers and hers alone. She had been the one to first grab his useless arm and bring it between her legs, she had been the first to kiss it, she had been the first to let him touch her with it without flinching, he earned it fighting for her virtue.

His hand may have been used by two hateful women, but his stump belonged to only one knight.

It took longer than usual this time but he got her there, as he did most times they laid together. Daenerys groaned as Jaime finished deep inside her, biting back the name he wanted to cry out before he collapsed on top of her, gasping for air that thankfully came rather quickly.

He looked down at Daenerys' face; beautiful beyond enduring, terrible, and worshipful, even as her youth started to fade. Her silver hair was in loose waves, soft and silky to the touch.

Jaime hated her. He hated her pale smooth skin, her violet eyes, her other-worldly Valyrian beauty, her very essence… She asked for him to share her bed not even a year after he agreed to stay for Brienne, after he swore to be a hostage to make sure Hayden never striked her. 

Maybe it wasn’t the curse, she told him that first night when he came to his chambers, frantic, eyes wide and clutching a VERY confused Jaime’s sleep shirt. Maybe it was her lovers with the problem instead of her, maybe it was Daario and Jon but Jaime… the Kingslayer had sired five children, two of them kings.

The lion wasn’t her first choice by far. Daenerys called on Gendry before all the rest, who had a strong strapping black haired son. His Lady Wife Arya answered the request with a drawing of a pie and a simple but well received message; ‘remember House Frey.’ Then she propositioned Podrick Stark, the Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, whose wife was pregnant with his first pup but Sansa ravened back that if Daenerys wanted him, she would have to come and claim him and face a thousand scorpions as a welcoming party. 

Robin Arryn was still a sickly little thing and she was afraid any son of his would be too, the new prince of Dorne said he would lay with her without issue but he wanted independence as repayment which was the same offer the Lord Reaper of Pyke made, but she was not willing to give up any of her claims. Bronn volunteered but only after she agreed to marry him, which she refused flat out. She would not take an old cutthroat, whose claim was dubious at best, to bed. Tyrion was a dwarf and as with Robin Arryn, what if what ailed her Hand was genetic? 

Jaime was the Queen's last hope. If there was a possible way for her to have another child, a flesh and blood child, he was her best chance. He told her no, that he would not betray Brienne, he would not ever lay with another woman who wasn’t her, especially the woman who took their child from them. Daenerys swore the moment he gave her a child, it didn’t even have to be a son, she would have the High Septon annul Brienne's marriage. She would be free of Hayden, she would have her sapphire isle back, her House would rule Tarth once more. 

That was the first night he laid with the Queen.

Sixteen years later there had been no sons, no daughters and no heirs but Daenerys persisted. She took Jon or Jaime at least once a week, desperate for either mens seed to quicken her womb with no success.

Jaime rolled off the blonde, allowed himself one moment of rest before he climbed from the bed and dressed himself. Outside the window Drogon sang, and Daenerys ran the her fingers over her stomach where they both knew no child would ever grow again. Without so much as a word the Kingslayer left the room, eyes downcast as the sullen king crossed him in the corridor, neither one uttering a sound.

Like he always did after his time with the Queen, Jaime headed up to the roof of the castle. A chilly fall wind was blowing against his skin but he ignored the dropping temperatures as he gazed up at the sky and he found the thing he gazed at nearly every night. 

The moon was a sharp pale grey crescent against the smoky sky and it was as beautiful as the woman whose sigil it belonged to.

He missed his wench, his sapphire beauty, his lioness more than anything. He often wondered if he occupied her thoughts as much as she occupied his, if she dreamt of him as much as he dreamt of her, of the children that were supposed to be theirs, of the happy perfect life that was supposed to belong to them.

Somewhere out there beneath the pale moonlight, he knew Brienne was thinking of him and loving him tonight, just as much as he was thinking of her.

Jaime watched as a pale star flew across the sky, cutting across the beautiful crescent moon. 

“Bring her back to me,” he whispered to the New Gods as his eyes followed the comet. “Please. Just once. Just let me see her once, and I’ll never ask for another thing ever again, I’ll be content. I swear it. Just let me see her again. Please.”

A cold wind blew gently against his lips, sweet as wine and just as smooth and Jaime smiled. Somewhere out there, if love could see them through, he knew they would be together somewhere out where dreams came true.

That’s what she was to him now; a beautiful dream, soft and warm and so real he often wept when he awoke and she was nowhere to be found. But that would change soon, it had to. How could the Gods be so cruel as to make two people so perfect for one another and then rip them apart? Perhaps Jaime deserved it, but not Brienne.

But it would come to an end soon, he felt it in his heart, in his soul, in every part of him and that was all that mattered, Brienne was all that mattered and he knew, somehow, she would return to him.

Someday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus points to you if you know which song I referenced throughout this chapter 🐭


	6. Chapter 6

_ The blood was so thick in the air, Tanda could taste the metal. This was a dark place, a dangerous place. Something was coming, something bad.  _

_ Tanda whimpered as she tried to see through the darkness, crying out for help with no answer but the sound of her feet hitting the floor. A hand grabbed her shoulder and she twisted around, finding Galezna smiling at her, arms stretched open.  _

_ “Come here, My Tanda,” she purred. _

_ “We need to leave!” Tanda cried. “We need to go!” _

_ “No, My Tanda, this is fine.” Her smile grew. “You’re safe. I’ll keep you safe.” _

_ “No!” A sob caught in her throat. Why didn’t Galezna care about the danger? “We need to go! We need to go NOW!”  _

_ A low growl came from behind them and they both turned towards it. A lioness as white as snow and near as tall as a horse was stalking towards them. It’s eyes were the deepest sapphires she had ever seen and a pale blue fire surrounded the great beast, the only light in the world. _

_ She cried out as the great cat approached, growling low in its throat. Dagger like nails clicked with every step it took. When Galezna clutched the blondes arm, the lioness let out a deafening roar and pounced, knocking the madame to the ground and wrapping its massive jaws around the Lazikeens throat and biting down, roaring in triumph as the blood ran hot and wet over her teeth. _

“M’lady?”

The young girl bit back a scream as she flew up in bed, gasping for air. The lioness faded from view and in its place were the chambers she had been living in the past two weeks. Tanda took a deep breath to try to calm her pounding heart.

The sun had just begun to peak above the horizon and the pale rays of light were beginning to paint the large room with it’s beautiful colors. The sounds of blunted steel against blunted steel and horses and dogs flittered up from the courtyard, a pleasant enough sound and a far cry from whores arguing over the limited amount of hot water they had available for their morning baths, doors slamming and the fishmongers calling out the catch of the day that she heard in Meereen.

“M’lady?” the voice called though the heavy oaken door again, the usual serving girl who woke her with a promise of breakfast being served. “Are you awake?”

After assuring she was and she would be down shortly Tanda stumbled from her bed to relieve herself in her chamber pot before she washed herself and combed the tangles from her hair. 

Her wardrobe had grown exponentially in the last two weeks, consisting of a men’s clothes that were long enough but loose fitting and some of Lady Sansa’s old dresses that had been modified to fit the broad six foot tall woman. She liked wearing those the most. It was heavy grey and white velvet and lined with soft fur that kept the chill of the North at bay. Wearing the gowns made Tanda feel like a Lady. It made her feel like she could actually be this Highborn girl everyone kept telling her she was. 

After she readied herself for the day and made sure to put more wood on the fire for when she returned (one of the very first things she learned about the North. Everytime you leave the room you put more wood on elsewise you would be sitting in a freezing room huddled under blankets for an hour while you waited for it to get warm) Tanda headed down into the Great Hall where the Starks, Ned Baratheon and Tyrion were waiting for her arrival.

Sansa and Podrick sat at the head of the table with their oldest son Eddard sitting besides his father. Eddard was a tall boy of ten and five with grey eyes and copper hair. He had a look of stern knowing melancholy that would have rivaled the most serious of Northern Kings. Besides him, sat his sister Catelyn, a fourteen year old girl with the same shade of hair as her eldest brother and mother but all the rest of Cat was her father. Not a hint of Stark or Tully could be found in her plump friendly face and warm brown eyes. 

Then little Arya and Robb, eleven and nine respectively, had hair of brown with the same blue Tully eyes that belonged to their mother and grandmother. Seven year old Brian had a full head of reddish-brown hair, brown eyes and a smile that could light up the whole of the North.

Podrick told Tanda that the Gods gave him the same smile of the woman they named him for.

Sansa rose to her feet when she spotted Tanda and smiled at the younger woman, greeting her with a friendly ‘good morning’ that she returned in earnest as she took her seat across from the red headed woman. She grabbed the pitcher of water and poured herself a healthy cup before she began to dig into the venison steak and fried eggs the cook’s made for breakfast. 

It admittedly took a little while to get used to the abundance of food, to the servants that would carry her around on their shoulders if she asked, to the feather bed and the chambers bigger than the entire floor of the pillow house, to being addressed as ‘M’lady’ and not just by men wanting a Lady and servant fantasy, to not having to lay on her back to earn her keep.

It was all very different and new, and while she did like some, if not most, of the changes that came with being a guest of the Lord and Lady of Winterfell, Tanda did miss her friends. She missed the heat of Meereen, she missed the roasted scorpions basted with honey the street vender outside the pillow house sold and the chicken doused in a fiery dragon pepper sauce that Shilah, the pillow houses cook, made them. She missed the exotic and strange spices that men would sometimes bring as a barbering chip when they didn’t have enough gold that Shilah would use in their meals (Galezna once let a man fuck a 14 year old Tanda in the ass for a large jug of Astapor spices. She gave the young girl the second best piece of the roast Shilah seasoned with the gains that night after Galezna took the choice cut, of course).

She also missed Galezna. She missed the woman who saved her from a life of homlessness, who protected her, who gave her a home, who loved her far more than her real mother had. Rather that was the whore who dropped her on the orphanage's steps or the Highborn Lady who just believed the Queen of her demise was yet to be seen, but either way Galezna out-mothered them both.

Speaking of. “Have you heard from Galezna yet?” Tanda asked Tyrion, using a chunk of bread to mop up some of the grease.

The dwarf took a long sip of orange juice before he answered. “Unfortunately not.”

“But you did raven her?”

“The moment you asked me.”

“And how long does it take ravens to fly from Winterfell to Meereen? Do you think she received your message?”

“I don’t know.” He was trying hard to hide his exasperation with the same question she asked almost daily. “A bird flew off telling her that you were asking for her to sail to Westeros. But Tanda we can’t delay much longer, we need to head down to Kingslanding soon.”

Tanda blinked. “I’m… I’m sorry,  _ we _ ?”

“Yes, ‘we’. It’s no longer safe for you here. You’ll be coming with me to Kingslanding.”

“Why?” 

“Tanda, I’ve told you-.”

“No you told me why I can’t go to Tarth or Casterly Rock even though I’m the supposed heir to both. If I show up in either of those places others will tell her who I am. Won’t that be the same case in Kingslanding? At least if I go to the Rock or Tarth the people there will be a little more loyal.”

“Tanda’s right,”Podrick added, taking a bite of egg. “I understand why you have to go back but there’s no reason why Tanda can’t stay here until you’re ready to grant her Casterly Rock or Tarth.”

“The Queen has spies everywhere, even the North,” Tyrion reminded him. “If she finds out you’re harboring her, Daenerys could come to Winterfell and when she does-.”

“You don’t care about the North.”

The table turned towards Sansa. Her face was a mask of steel and ice, not a hint of emotion or expression. The Lady of Winterfell was utterly stoic and calm as stillpond, no expression, an utter blank space, and Tanda found herself wondering just how high the walls had to have been for her to get this way. 

“You don’t care about the North,” She wasn’t accusing Tyrion of anything, she was speaking unfathomable truths and they all knew it. “If that was your main concern you never would have brought her here in the first place, nor would you have allowed yourself to linger for so long. Tell me why you want Tanda in Kingslanding and tell me  _ now.” _

Tyrion eyed the flagon of wine on the table with a longing that reminded Tanda of a man who had gone to a whorehouse with too little gold in his pocket. “It’s the safest place for her,” he finally said, turning away from the metal pitcher.

“She’ll be right under the Queens nose, she’ll know who she is the moment she sets eyes on her,” Ned argued. Tandas eyes flickered to the black haired boy but he never turned from the Hand. “She’ll figure out who she is the moment she lays eyes on Tanda.”

“Which is why it’ll be safest. Look- if she stays hidden from the Queen, Daenerys will know she knows about her heritage. If she goes to the Redkeep to work as a scullery maid however, the Queen will think it’s all just a coincidence, that she has no idea who her real parents are.”

“A scullery maid?” Tanda scoffed at the very idea. “You want me to work as a scullery maid?”

“They don’t have official Redkeep whores, I’m afraid.”

“But a scullery maid? Cooking and cleaning and scouring pots? That’s what I’ll be doing?”

The corner of his eyes crinkled. “Do you know you reminded me quite a bit of your aunt just then? And yes; that is what you’ll be doing. And you’ll know nothing of your heritage or your father or mother or anything of the like.”

“But you said the south isn’t safe for me, that the Northmen would protect me. Why has that changed?”

“I also said that even the North has spies. If you stay here much longer, the Queen WILL come North. No place will be safer for you than in Kingslanding.” He reached across the table and took hold of her hand. “Trust me, Tanda. I wouldn’t lie to you. All Daenerys will think is a bastard whore bought her freedom and returned to the city she was born and raised in.” 

Tanda frowned but offered no more arguments because she had none to give. The longer she stayed in Winterfell, the more likely a spy was apt to betray her and then Daenerys would turn her dragon north and she wouldn’t let the lives of the people who took her in be risked. Besides; there was another reason for her to go to Kingslandin, even if she was made to be a scullery maid.

“You said before that the man you believe my father to be is in Kingslanding.” Tyrion froze with his water goblet halfway to his lips. “Will I get to meet him?”

The dwarf cleared his throat, taking a long sip of the water before he set down the cup. “I’m afraid not.”

“Why?”

“Because the idea is to make the Queen believe that you don’t know who you are. Having you hug your father every time you might just ruin that perception. It’ll just be for a little while,” he added when she cast her eyes downward. “I promise you, Tanda, I will figure out a way for you to be with your parents.”

A pain she didn’t even realize existed filled her chest. Rather than respond Tanda excused herself and pushed herself away from the table, ignoring the pitying looks of the Stark pack. She found herself on the bridge in the courtyard, shivering as she watched the men practice their swordplay in the snow. The grunts and cries of the men and the song of steel kissing steel was a welcome one. She would rather hear this then any excuse Tyrion had for why she had to go back to that hellhole of a city to work as a servant. Then to make it all the worse, she couldn’t even meet the man he claimed was her father. 

All the better, she decided as she watched one man wrench away his opponents shield. If he even was her father, which she still doubted, he was probably glad he wasn’t stuck with the burden of a bastard. The great tragic romance was probably nothing more than an exaggerated lie and both were more than likely grateful to all Seven Gods when the queen took her away.

“Would you like to try?”

Tanda turned into her heel and saw Pod standing in the doorway that led back inside, his smile the only warmth in this whole bloody part of the country. Without waiting for an answer he walked over to her and leaned on the bannister overlooking the courtyard, watching as his heir and nephew squared off. “I’m sure we have some spare armor along with a tourney sword hanging around.”

Tanda shook her head. Down on the courtyard the two boys began to fight. “I’ve never picked up a sword before in my life. All I would do is embarrass myself.”

“I never did either.” Pod smiled at her. “Until your mother taught me.”

“My-... Lady Brienne taught you to fight?”

“She did. I was her squire.” He said that with the same pride that came with announcing his title of Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North. “Not a very good one, but I was her squire nonetheless. She taught me how to fight honorably, she taught me how to ride, how to clean game, she was the reason I met my wife... Brienne saved mine and Sansa’s lived half a hundred times but I couldn’t save her family in return.” His smile fell and he turned towards her with the saddest eyes she ever saw. “Nothing’s more hateful than failing to protect the ones you love.”

Podricks breath was crisp and white in the cold afternoon air. His hand went to the hilt of his blade; a longsword with a dark purple hilt embedded with gold coins and a smooth white round pommel with a gold coin in the center. “I love Brienne. I love her like she was my own mother, and every day I kick myself for not helping the two of you in your hour of need when she would have done anything to help me. And I know you don’t believe it but she DOES love you. She wanted you more than anything, she dreamt of you since before she could even remember. And your father; I’ve never seen a man so excited to be given the chance to raise a child. You were loved, Tanda. You were loved, you were adored, you were  _ wanted. _ ”

A snowflake landed on her cheek and melted. “Then why didn’t they go against the queen? Why did they never look for me?”

“They thought you were dead, we all did. The moment Tyrion got word you weren’t plans were put in place to find you.”

A loud grunt and shout kept her from having to answer. They looked down and saw that Eddard Stark had successfully managed to disarm his similarly named cousin Ned Baratheon and had sent him ass over teakettle into the show. Tanda snorted a laugh and Ned looked up at the balcony, his glare softening in a smirk when he saw who it was that was laughing at him. 

“You laugh,” Podrick said, with his own amusement. “But you put a hammer in my nephew's hand rather than a sword and there’s not a man alive who could stand against him.”

Eddard helped his opponent up out of the show, helping to brush off some of the lingering flakes before he took up his stance again. Ned winked at Tanda who just rolled her eyes to the heavens before he turned towards Eddard and the boys began their match again.

It was getting chillier and Tanda had to pack up what belongings she had so with one last, totally uninterested, look towards the cocky stag, she made her way back inside, grateful for the warmth of the castle and for the still warm fire burning in her chambers.

Just as she was picking up the last of the dresses she brought with her from Essos, there was a knock on her door. She answered it to find Ned standing there no longer wearing the armor he had worn out in the training but a soft brown leather jerkin and black breeches.

“What are you doing here?” she asked after she closed the door behind him. “Shouldn’t you be out practicing? I watched you spar today, you could definitely need it.”

“Funny,” he said without much amusement as he glanced around her room. “Your chambers are bigger than mine.”

“Jealous?” she asked, smirking. He walked past her and Tanda took a moment to admire the strong lean teenager. He was strong, and his muscles were as thick as a castle wall. It didn’t matter he was an inch or so shorter, most men were anyway, and none quite as attractive.

“Of course not. Mother always says sacrifice to the less fortunate.”

“Well if Tyrion is right, and I am the heir to the Lannister fortune, the Westerlands and my own island, forgive me if I’m wrong M’lord but wouldn’t that make me wealthier than you?”

“In theory.” Ned didn’t smile, but the corner of his grey eyes crinkled in amusement. “But in that case that would make me less fortunate than you which means I should get these chambers.”

“Perhaps except my mother always said every man for himself so I wouldn’t be under the same obligations as you to give it up.”

He quirked his head to the dude. “Your mother?” he questioned. “But I thought-.”

“Galezna, the woman who raised me since I was eight,” she clarified, leaving out the more sordid details. Any teasing she wanted to do disappeared at the thought of her and she sank down on the bed, eyes cast downward. 

“You miss her.” Not a question, a comment. Tanda nodded and blinked away her tears. Ned walked over to her and sat down beside her. “I’m sorry. I know what it is to leave your home and leave the people you care about behind.”

“But now be told that you aren’t even allowed to think of them as what you considered them, that simply by missing them you’re hurting this other woman who you don’t particularly feel any strong emotions too other than anger and disappointment.” She paused to wipe away more of her tears. “I’m sorry, I’m whining.”

“No you aren’t.” Tanda rested her head on his shoulder and nestled as close to him as space would allow. He wrapped his arm around her and gently rubbed her shoulder. “I can’t imagine what you must be going through, being told you’re a whole other person. If there’s anything I can do to make you feel better…”

She nodded, saying nothing for fear of crying and instead just nuzzled her face into the crook of his neck. The young lord smelled good, like sweat and steel and leather and Tanda brushed the faintest hint of lips against his skin and he froze.

“What are you doing?” Ned asked. His voice had almost a panicked quality to it.

“What does it feel like?” Tanda muttered, running her hand up his leather covered thigh and reaching between his legs. The stag leapt from the bed, nearly stumbling over his own feet.

“We, I-.... You-, we-... what are you doing?” he hissed, eyes wide and looking at the door as if his Aunt, Nuncle and the rest of Winterfell would come bursting in at any moment. 

“I- you, you sat on the bed so I thought-.”

“I was trying to be nice! I didn’t mean-... Seven  _ Hells _ , Tanda, we just met two weeks ago, we aren’t even betrothed so much as married!”

She blinked. “And?”

Ned took a deep breath, running a hand over his close cropped hair. “I’m the trueborn heir to the Stormlands and Stormsend. You’re the heir to the Westerlands and Tarth, you shouldn’t be doing this.”

“You’re still not making any sense. Do you know how many single Highborns, how many _married_ highborns I’ve been with? You’ve reached your eighteenth nameday, surely you’ve been with a woman,” she laughed before she caught the look of his face. “... You’re a maid.”

“As I should be,” he said without a hint of shame. “I want to honor my wife, whoever that ends up being. I’ll be hers, she’ll be mine. It wouldn’t be right to share what’s hers with another, and as a Highborn girl you should consider that ideology for yourself.”

Tanda was equal parts amused and impressed. A man like Ned, he clearly could have had any woman he desired, free of charge. Yet here he was, a virgin, all for the sake of honor to a woman he hadn’t even met yet. 

“I’m sorry to disappoint my future husband, but I’ve already shared ‘whats his’ with probably a thousand different men in my life.”

“You didn’t know who you were and it was the only way for you to survive, only a madman would judge you for that, but you know now.” Ned took a deep breath and smoothed out his jerkin. “I like you Tanda. I do. Maybe when this all gets settled and your parents think about betrothals, we could get lucky but I will not lay with another outside the bonds of marriage.”

Tanda couldn’t help the soft smile that rose to her lips. It felt nice, more than nice, to be treated like this. To be turned down for modesty reasons, to have someone care about  _ her _ virtues which had been stolen long ago. But here this man was, a good kind handsome man doing just that.

“I understand what you’re saying,” she told him. “And I’m sorry for pressuring you or making you feel uncomfortable. No one should be forced into sex.”

“It’s alright. This was probably my fault for coming in here.” Another deep breath before he straightened up and gave her a curt nod. “Hopefully when this is all settled, as I said, we can meet again.” He held out his hand. “Until then.”

Tanda bit back a laugh as she shook his hand. The skin was rough and calloused and she gnawed at her lip when she thought about how those hands would feel against her soft pale flesh.

After bidding each other ado once more Ned left, leaving her alone with her thoughts. For the first time since she was told she was actually a Lannister, she was suddenly rather glad for it…

—-

_ The cub is moving south. The game is afoot. We must keep this from the lion and his sun, or else this will never work and it will all have been for nothing. _

_ We’ll be in Kingslanding soon. Do not make your move until then. _

_ Morghon naejot se zaldrīzes _

Please Review!


	7. Chapter 7

Tanda poked at the fire with a stick, her meal of fire roasted pigeon long since eaten. Beside her was Tyrion reading while his guards all sat around the fire either dozing off after the long day's journey or keeping watch. 

It had been an uneventful, nearly three week long ride from Winterfell to Kingslanding. The Hand promised they would arrive sometime tomorrow (or Tyrion and his posse would at least. Tanda and the guard he left with her would camp out for an extra day and then she would show up in the kitchens the next morning looking for work.) Tanda missed the soft featherbed and roaring fireplace that the North offered but she knew almost as soon as she arrived it would be too good to last. Not to mention, as much as it frustrated her that a place full of people who truly seemed to care for her, the North wasn’t her place. She felt it deep in her bones, even more so the few times she would go and visit the Godswood.

Ned told her it was because she was a Lannister, the most Andel an Andal could be, and Tarth was even more southern than Casterly Rock. Tanda had the blood of Andal kings, east and west in her veins (supposedly) and the Old Gods did not much appreciate that apparently. 

“You’re thinking very loudly,” Tyrion interrupted her musings. Tanda looked up to find him still staring at his book. “Penny for your thoughts?”

She shrugged and continued to stare and poke at the fire. “Just thinking about something Ned told me before we left.”

The corner of his eyes crinkled. “He say a lot to you before you left?”

“Not a whole lot, no,” she said rather bluntly. “It was just something about the Gods.”

“Hmm.” He turned another page in his book. “You know his parents haven’t betrothed him to anyone yet. When all this is over and you’re back with your parents, perhaps they could arrange something.”

“When all this is over? You mean after the Queen decides, for no reason then out of the goodness of her heart, to let my family live happily ever after? Then what, I become the undisputed heir to the Westerlands and Brienne's husband allows her to marry my father? Oh and even a whore from Essos knows all about the hate Lady Baratheon carries for the Lannisters.” For some strange reason a twinge of anger nibbled at her. What did she care if some Great House hated another? “She’d never let her son marry one.”

Tyrion said nothing to her challenge that somehow things might not work out in the best little picture he had painted, and rather just flipped another page in his book. “Why do you do that?”

“What?”

“Describe your mother as ‘Brienne’ but your father as ‘your father’.”

“I don’t know,” she muttered halfway to herself.

Another flip of the page. “It wouldn’t have something to do with the woman who bought you would it?”

“Of course not! I just… it’s just easier to accept this man as my father,” she explained, poking at the fire again. “Fathers leave all the time, they don’t get told about pregnancies, they decide they don’t want a babe to take care of and decide to disappear. But mothers are supposed to protect you, no matter what. They’re supposed to be there for you. It’s expected that my father didn’t care but Brienne should have done  _ something _ other than just accept it.”

Finally setting the book down, Tyrion frowned at the teenager. “Your father loves you, Tanda. He wanted you more than anything, your mother too. If they had any inkling you were alive-.”

“But they didn't, did they? They accepted what the queen told them, they never bothered to look for me.”

“The queen already promised to punish you for their sins. There was no reason for her to lie and say you were dead.”

“Then why did she?” She was shocked to hear the tremble in her voice. “Why did the queen lie to them?”

A sad smile made its way to Tyrion’s face. “Because Daenerys knew if they thought you were alive; they never would have stopped looking for you.”

Leaving her with that final thought Tyrion headed into his tent for the night. Tanda sat around the fire for a while longer lamenting on his words. Tyrion made sense, his argument was fairly logical but even still- Tanda couldn’t let go of her anger, or years and years of deep-seeded thinking that she was dumped at some orphanage because her father didn’t know about her and worst of all was the knowledge that she was unwanted by her mother.

It had been bad enough knowing she may have grown up with a whore for a mother and a fisherman for a father but knowing she could have been not only Highborn but the oldest heir to a Great House, the richest House in Westeros, with her own island to boot. It simply added an extra level of rage and anger directed at the man and woman who were supposed to protect her.

Deciding the fire was getting too hot for her Tanda climbed into her tent, a gift from Podrick before she left. It was small, barely big enough for her to lay down or sit up but it was a place of privacy from the guards and it kept the rain away along with the chill of the wind so she couldn’t complain too much. Inside the faded grey tent was her bedroll, a field pillow, and her saddle bags and inside THOSE were several dresses she brought from the North along with her red cloak from Essos. But it left her feet and half her legs uncovered when she used it as a blanket so she had been forced to use Brienne’s brown fur lined cloak that Sansa gave to her. It didn’t much smell of age and misuse like she thought it would but rather it envelopes her in the smell of horses and steel and leather. It was long enough that it covered her completely and heavy enough that it was almost soothing and comforting when she wrapped herself in it.

Tanda soon fell asleep, dreaming once more of the white lioness. Only this time Galezna wasn’t there, it was just the two of them. The great cat didn’t attack, didn’t flinch, didn’t move. She just laid down in the ground and rolled on her back in a show of submissiveness. For some strange reason Tanda didn’t feel that same dread and foreboding as she did in the dreams when Galezna was there. 

_ I didn’t have anyone to protect in my dream, _ she told herself the next morning as she broke her fast on bacon and eggs.  _ That’s why I didn’t feel any danger. _

Tanda watched the men pack up camp while her tent stayed where it was along with her guards set up besides the fire. “This is your personal guard Pate. If he ever tries to touch you be a dear and let me know. Because if he does I’ll chop off his manhood and feed it to goats,” Tyrion said with a friendly smile while the guards face went a sickly stark white. Rather Tyrion was serious or not the threat worked to the point the guard hadn’t so much as spoken two words to her their whole journey.

After the camp was cleared the Hand came over to where Tanda was sitting on a rock. “Kings Landing is about a half days ride straight north, probably less when it’s just two riders. Ride that direction, you’ll come to the city, the castle should be pretty easy to find.”

“I understand.”

“I’ll instruct the guard to let you in the gate, I’ll tell him I ordered you as a whore. When you get there don’t seek out the Queen, just go straight for the kitchens and ask for Gael. Tell him Clovis sent you.”

“Whose Clovis?”

“It doesn’t matter. She’s a kitchen wench, every kitchen wench has fucked a man named Clovis at least once.”

Tanda laughed, an obnoxiously loud sound that Galezna always told her to muffle but Tyrion seemed to melt at the big sound. “You have your mother's laugh,” he said with wet eyes and a smile. “If my brother had the choice between listening to the famed singers from Volantis and your mother laughing, he would choose her laugh every time.”

The sentiment brought tears to her eyes that she quickly tried to blink away but failed to do so Tyrion’s face fell, and he wrapped his arms around her and embraced her, surprising her with just how much strength he had. She returned the embrace, using the moment to wipe away her tears.

“You’ll be with them soon,” Tyrion promised as he gently stroked the long blonde curls that mimicked his. “Just give me a little bit more time.”

She wasn’t sure why she trusted him. He was a stranger for all intents and purposes, the Queen's Hand but for some reason she did. Implicitly, even. Tanda nodded, promised him she knew he was doing his best and when she finally managed to dry her eyes Tyrion pulled away, clapped her on the shoulder, promised to check in on her once she settled in, climbed on his horse and rode away, leaving her and her lone guard alone.

The day went by slowly once the camp cleared out. The guard cooked them up some rabbit for lunch which was a bit dry but it wasn’t too bad, Tanda slept a bit more, ate some of the leftover hare, swordfought with a tree using a stick, got a splinter, then spent thirty minutes cursing herself out for trying to learn to sword fight. For supper he roasted a small bird the guard managed to catch over their fire and for dessert he managed to rustle up some blueberries that grew nearby (which just so happened to be Tandas favorite food). She stayed up a little while after that, too excited to sleep. Tanda lived in Kingslanding for eight years but had never once even been inside the Red Keep gates and now she was going to work in it and somewhere in there was her father. 

She wondered what he looked like. She knew Tyrion said not to seek him out but if she came upon him by happenstance would she be able to recognize him? Would he realize it was her or would she simply be a shadow of a faded memory from nearly twenty years ago? Tanda shook the thoughts away as she extinguished the fire before she climbed into her tent and under the heavy cloak. Of course he wouldn’t. Even if Jaime was as in love with Brienne as Tyrion said, Tanda was still a bastard. Great Lords didn’t love bastards near as much as their trueborn children. 

Not for the first time, Tanda thought about saddling her horse, riding to a port, getting on a boat and making her way back to Essos. But she couldn’t do that. She came this far, she wouldn’t turn back now.

The next morning they woke just as the sun was peeking over the horizon Tanda and the guard woke and broke camp. They broke their fast then disassembled their tiny little camp and headed out from the small clearing, her heart pounding and stomach clenching the whole time. Tyrion was right, it only took half a day to arrive at the bustling city and there in the distance was the red bricked castle. Kingslanding changed drastically since she was a girl. More of what had been burnt embers had been cleared away and houses and inns, storefronts and bakeries took their place. The castle seemed more complete as well, with nearly all of it rebuilt but the sounds were still the same, the smells, the street names, everything was all the same. 

People gawked and stared, as one tends to do when a six foot blonde woman comes riding into the city, but Tanda ignored them all as she made for the castle. She told the guard her name and with a smug grin they allowed her inside, thinking she was there to please the Hand. Once inside a stable boy quickly took charge of her horse, the guard headed off to his barracks and for the first time since Tyrion found her in her room in Meereen, she was left all alone. Tanda gazed up at the mighty keep slack jawed and wide eyed. It was far bigger and vast up close then it had been at a distance. She made her way into the castle trying her best not to gape at the stone corridors and asked directions to the kitchens. 

The kitchen was huge, stretching out in each direction to where Tanda thought they might have taken up nearly half the space of the whole castle. Smells of every sort surrounded her, sweet and savory alike, large ovens were cooking crusty bread and a fire pit as tall and as wide as Tanda had not one but two roasts turning in it, and a young boy was basting it with juices and herbs as it rotated. She arrived just as breakfast was done being served so thankfully the kitchens weren’t too busy or bustling but nevertheless even with her absurd height the ones working were too busy to notice her. 

A short plump older woman with frazzled mossy brown hair was barking orders at a girl who was chopping up some queer Dornish fruit so Tanda made her way over to her. She didn’t notice the former whore, not until she cleared her throat and got her attention. Her dark brown eyes went wide with shock as she craned her neck to look up at her. “Gods you’re a big one!” she gasped in a thick Fleabottom accent. 

Tanda blushed but pressed on. “Are you Gael?”

“Aye. And who might you be?”

“Tanda, m’lady,” she answered. “I’m in need of a job.”

“No spots open I’m afraid.”

“Clovis, he said you could help me. He sent me.”

Gael furrowed her brow and for a moment Tanda thought she might be exposed. “Clovis? I thought that fat bastard was dead…” she pursed her lips and shrugged. “Guess not.” Gael grabbed hold of her hands and examined them. “Not a burn on them, and not very calloused either. You work in a kitchen before, girl?”

“I worked in a Meereen pillow house from the time I was twelve.” She decided honesty wasn’t the best policy, for the most part. She knew she made the right choice seeing the horrified look on the woman's face. “I grew up in Kingslanding though, in Fleabottom. I sailed back when I bought my freedom.”

“Twelve years old? Bloody Essoians, making children lie on their backs,” she grumbled. “A girl should wait until she’s fourteen before she sees her first cock; that’s my philosophy.” Gael sighed and crossed her arms over her thick chest which was more bosom than anything. “I take it you wanna work here because you weren’t just looking for a chance of accent from the men you fucked.”

“Yes M’lady. I’ve always been interested in cooking,” she lied through her crooked teeth. “I figure the best place to learn would be from one of the best cooks in Westeros.”

“You haven’t even known me thirty seconds and you already insulted me, girl. I’m  **_the_ ** best cook in Westeros, not one of. What other cook can say her food fed five monarchs? In any case; can you read?” Tanda shook her head. “You’re gonna have to learn, that way you can read the recipes. You afraid of hard work?”

“No M’lady.”

“Because working in a kitchen isn’t as easy as lying on your back all day pretending someone’s little inch worm is the size of an Estermont anaconda.”

“I know M’lady. I’ll work hard, I promise. I’ll start from the bottom and work my way up.”

Gael seemed to debate for a moment before she gave a curt nod of her head. “You’ll start out a scullery maid,” Tanda had to bite back a groan, “work your way up from there. You got a place to stay?”

Tyrion said he would arrange to get her a small home in Kingslanding so she said she did which was good because the other option was sleeping in a crawl space above the stove with the spit boy Pate.

“You’ll be paid ten coppers every week, six days a week,” Gael offered. “Sound fair?”

_ No _ , she thought bitterly. One man could get her three silvers, 2 of which she got to keep for herself. Now she would be making ten coppers a week for much more grueling work. But rather than argue Tanda nodded and said of course it was fair. Gael handed her a scrub brush and a bucket of soapy water, clapped her on the back and told her to get to work. 

Doing her best to keep the look of disappointment off her face, Tanda fell to her knees and began to scrub the floors. During the frantic chaotic lunch rush she tossed the discarded potato peelings into the trash pit, grabbed buckets of water from the well and scoured the pots in scolding dishwasher. By the time she was done she was exhausted, and she had to lean on her mop to keep from falling over but Gael gave her some of the capon that had been left on the spit a little too long and were a just a bit too black on one side and the legs had dried out. 

Even if was less than perfect, it was still one of the best things Tanda had ever eaten. The breast was still succulent and the juices from the bird ran down her chin. The skin was crisped near to perfection and the herbs that coated it danced on her tongue.

Gael wasn’t lying, she COULD cook and her creations were absolutely fit for a monarch. But the break was short lived and she was back to sweeping and scrubbing, washing and drying… By the time dinner rolled around, which was even  _ more _ back breaking and chaotic then lunch her hands were covered in blisters and burns, her eyes watered from all the smoke and her ears rang from all the shouts and clashing of pots and pans. But she was given a bloody piece of roast crusted in salt and spices and a hefty helping of mashed potatoes that were swimming in butter and chives with a cold glass of ale to wash it all down with as her reward for a hard day's work. 

“You ain’t the fastest girl I got working in my kitchens,” Gael commented as she sat down besides her newest employee on a barrel of apples. “But not the slowest either.”

“Thank you, M’lady,” Tanda said through a mouthful of roast. 

Gael clapped her on the shoulders before she stood up and stretched. “When you’re done with your meal, wash up those plates over there by the sink and call it a day. I want you here bright and early tomorrow, no more than an hour after the suns risen.”

“Yes, M’lady.”

With another clap on her shoulder the kitchen matron headed away leaving the young girl alone. After she washed up the stack of plates she headed up to the Tower of the Hand where Tyrion was waiting for her in his chambers. 

“How was your first day of work?”

“Hard,” she grumbled as she sank down in one of the chairs. “I’ve never had so many callouses in my life.”

Tyrion laughed as he dug in his desk. “If there was ever any doubt you and Cersei share the same blood…” He pulled out a small silver key and handed it to her. “Your new home on the Street of Flour. Not exactly Visenya’s Hill but it’s not Fleabottom either. You’ll also have your own guards.”

“You don’t think people will question how a former whore turned kitchen wench can afford her own home with private security?”

“You saved up a lot of money in Essos,” he suggested with a shrug. “I’m just trying to make you comfortable here, Tanda.”

“I know. And I appreciate all of it, Tyrion.” She smiled at her uncle. “I promise.”

After he gave her implicit instructions to head straight to the address provided and not linger, she left the Hands chambers and immediately proceeded to explore the castle. Everywhere she looked were three headed dragon banners of black and red, stone of dark grey and white candles lighting her way down the corridors. Tapestries of the Targaryen king and queens of old hung on the wall, silver haired and purpled eyed knights and ladies, princes and princesses. The castle was abandoned, seeing as it was nearing midnight, and her footsteps echoed on the polished floor. Soon Tanda found herself in front of two large wooden doors with silver dragons acting as its handles with a crack of light seeping through. Pursing her lips, Tanda pushed on one and slowly and silently made her way inside, gasping when she saw what room she had stumbled into.

The throne room was as big a room as Tanda had ever seen before. A throne of sleek black dragon glass stood high above the red and black tiled floor. Dragon skulls hung high from the ceilings, huge massive beasts where Tanda and tiny white monstrosities no bigger than cats. White marble columns with green ivy carved into the grand pillars stood tall and mighty and when Tanda examined them more closely she saw at the foot of the older ones were the pink and blue sun and moon sigil of Tarth, while on the newer columns was a white skull with sapphires for eyes. 

She kneeled in front of the pillar marked with the celestial symbols and with a trembling hand she ran her fingers across the celestial symbols etched into the sleek smooth marble. Her eyes grew wet as she traced the crescent moon on the azure background that felt cool against her touch. She leaned her forehead against the marble, leaving a streak of wetness as her tears fell onto the smooth rock.

“What are you doing in here?” a voice barked at her, breaking her out of the moment.

Tanda scrambled to her feet and twisted herself around, coming face to face with a Dothraki screamer.

He couldn’t have been but a year or so older than Tanda and he was tall, taller than her even though only by only an inch or so, and his inky black braid fell a few inches past his broad shoulders. Strong muscles ripped under smooth copper skin and brown almond shaped eyes narrowed in suspicion at the girl. In his hand he held a large curved arakh and on his body he wore the typical grass woven Dothraki garb but his voice was unlike any Dothraki she had met from Essos. His Horselord accent was flavored with Westerosi who lived here in the capital city.

“I’m sorry!” She cried, trembling. If he took her to the queen and Daenerys recognized her… “I-, I was just-.”

“You are not supposed to be in here,” the Horselord barked at her. “This is Khaleesi’s throne room.”

“I know! I know, I- I was just exploring the castle! I’m, I work in the kitchens, it- it was my first day, I was just exploring I swear! Please don’t tell the queen!”

Wordlessly, he pointed to the column and, biting back a sob, she placed her hands on them, trying her best not to tremble. The guard searched her, lingering or touching nowhere they weren’t supposed to and when he was satisfied she didn’t carry a weapon he stepped back and she faced him again.

“I know I shouldn’t be in here without permission,” she tried again. “I swear to the Old Gods and the New I was just exploring.” Tanda licked her plump lips and wore her most seductive expression.  _ When all else failed, fall back to old tricks.  _ “If you don’t tell the Queen,” she purred. “I’ll let you do what you want.” She ran a finger down his muscled chest. “ _ Anything _ you want.”

His handsome face was stoic, unflinching, and when she reached for his horsehair belt he grabbed hold of her wrist and pulled her hand away. “Go,” he said sharply with a nod towards the door. “Don’t let me catch you in here without permission again.”

“And you… you won’t tell the queen about this?”

“Khaleesi has much bigger problems to deal with then a cook who lost her way.”

She could have kissed him. Tanda breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at the Dothraki. “Thank you. Thank you so much…?”

“Rollo,” he told her. “Now go.”

“Thank you, Rollo,” she said again, offering him one last smile before she took his advice and hurried out of the throne room as quick and as fast as she could.

Please Review!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #BlackLivesMatter ✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿  
> https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/


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